ABOUT  IT 
€r  ABOUT 


D.    WILLOUGHBY 


UBRARY 


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ABOUT   IT   &   ABOUT 


ABOUT  IT  &  ABOUT 


BY 


D.    WILLOUGHBY 


E.  P.  BUTTON  AND  COMPANY 
681     FIFTH    AVENUE,    NEW     YORK 


(All  rights  reserved) 

PRINTED  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 


TO  MY 

WIFE   AND   MOTHER 


PREFACE 

IN  the  sketches  and  studies  of  which  this 
book  consists,  I  have  examined  a  number 
of  reputable  British  institutions.  I  have  ranged 
from  John  Bull,  his  wife  and  children,  to  the 
houses  in  which  they  live,  and  to  sundry  public 
bodies  which  are  supposed  to  serve  them.  As 
we  do  not  live  alone  in  the  world,  I  have  taken 
a  glance  at  Ireland,  and  have,  when  necessary, 
extended  my  survey  to  other  lands.  I  have  also 
had  a  few  words  to  say  on  certain  persons  to 
whom  in  the  recent  past  we  looked  as  leaders 
of  reform,  but  who  now  seem  to  be  speaking  to 
audiences  which  no  longer  exist. 

There  have  been  many  books  about  war,  but 
this  is  a  book  about  peace.  I  have,  therefore, 
tried  to  make  it  a  cheerful  book.  It  will  not, 
however,  add  to  the  gaiety  of  those  who  believe 
that  an  armistice  and  a  treaty  have  made  every- 
thing right  for  us,  and  that  there  is  now  nothing 
for  them  but  to  return  to  their  sofas.  Persons, 
traditions,  and  institutions,  once  very  useful, 
must  now  either  be  abandoned  or  radically 
altered.     To  cling  to  them  when  their  use  has 

* 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

vanished  is  to  invite  revolution,  and  to  use 
them  as  the  basis  of  reconstruction  is  to  build 
the  new  State  upon  sand. 

A  desire  for  new  things  is  plain  in  many 
quarters. 

Never  came  reformation  in  a  flood, 

With  such  a  heady  currance,  scouring  faults. 

The  mere  fact  that  a  thing  is  and  has  been 
seems  to  be  taken  often  as  reason  enough  for  its 
abolition,  yet  side  by  side  with  this  spirit, 
popularly  called  Bolshevism,  exists  a  still  power- 
ful disposition  towards  reaction.  Some  are  for 
putting  the  clock  forward,  some  for  putting 
it  back ;  few  seem  to  know  or  to  care  what  the 
right  time  may  be.  War  has  made  most  people 
violent.  At  the  risk  of  being  out  of  fashion, 
I  remain  impenitently  moderate.  I  confess  to 
a  certain  dislike  of  things  as  they  are,  yet  when 
I  come  on  various  fragments  of  the  old  world, 
such  as  a  church,  a  comedy  by  Mr.  Shaw,  or 
a  tavern  with  idolatrous  literary  associations, 
I  am  anxious  not  only  that  it  should  be  preserved, 
but  that  it  should  be  taken  out  of  its  lavender 
and  brought  forthwith  into  daily  service. 

Of  all  people,  the  English  know  themselves 
the   least.    They   have   not   the   habit   of  self- 

8 


PREFACE 


examination,  and  they  may,  in  consequence, 
be  a  trifle  annoyed  when  I  hold  up  a  mirror  to 
them.  The  qualifications  I  claim  for  the  task 
are  that  I  was  born  in  William  the  Conqueror's 
old  duchy,  that  I  have  several  dashes  of  Irish 
blood,  and  that  I  have  recently  passed  a  couple 
of  years  on  active  service  abroad,  there  enjoying 
a  chance  for  reflection  on  many  things  which  in 
the  common  hurry  of  existence  I  had  previously 
taken  for  granted.  For  the  rest,  I  can  only 
advance  the  facts  that  I  have  lived  most  of  my 
life  in  England,  and  that,  like  the  obscure  Peter 
Pattieson  and  other  persons  even  less  notable, 
I  possess  "  the  usual  allowance  of  visual  organs." 
Most  of  the  following  articles,  in  whole  or  part, 
appeared  in  Everyman.  My  warmest  thanks 
are  due  to  the  editor  for  the  encouragement 
he  gave  me  in  their  production,  and  thanks 
equally  warm  are  due  to  the  friend  who  first 
made  me  known  to  him.  One  article,  in  a 
slightly  shortened  form,  appeared  in  The  Out- 
look, 


9 


CONTENTS 


PAOB 

I. 

THB    BRITISH   MATRON 

.    IB 

II. 

JOHN   BULL    .... 

.    33 

III. 

THB   YOUNG   LADY       . 

.    81 

IV. 

THB   PUBLIC   SCHOOL 

.    40 

V. 

THB   BRASS   HATS 

.    50 

VI. 

THB    DIPLOMATISTS    . 

.    68 

VII. 

THB   BENCH   OP  BISHOPS 

.    67 

VIII. 

THB   PRIMROSE   LEAGUE 

.     76 

IX. 

THE   TEMPORARY  CIVIL   SERVANT 

.    84 

X. 

THB   IMPERIALIST 

.    93 

XI. 

THB   BUSINESS   MAN   . 

.  101 

XII. 

THB   COUNTRY   HOUSE 

.  109 

XIII. 

THE   RATIONALIST 

.  118 

XIV. 

THB    FABIAN   SOCIETY 

.  126 

XV. 

THE   WAR  POETS          .                 .                 .                 . 

.  135 

XVI. 

KINGS   IN    EXILE 

.  144 

XVII. 

MR.    BERNARD   SHAW 

.  168 

tVIII. 

MR.    HILAIRE   BBLLOC 

.  161 

11 


A  B 

OUT         IT        AND       ABOUT 

PASB 

XIX. 

THE   ANARCHIST 

.  169 

XX. 

SONS   OF   TOIL 

.  177 

XXI. 

THE   ORANaEMAN      . 

.  186 

XXII. 

THE   DAILY   NEWSPAPER 

.  193 

xxin. 

THE   ACTOR-MANAGER 

.  201 

XXIV. 

THE    SUPERMAN 

.  209 

XXV. 

THE   DOMESTIC   SERVANT       . 

.  217 

XXVI. 

THE   HOUSE   OF   LORDS 

.  224 

XXVII. 

THE    PUBLIC    HOUSE 

.  234 

XXVIII. 

THE    POOR   LAW 

.  243 

XXIX. 

THE    SPORTSMAN        .                 .                 .                 . 

.  253 

XXX. 

THE    COUPON   GOVERNMENT 

.  262 

XXXI. 

CERTAIN   ARTISTS      .... 

.  270 

XXXII. 

DOCTORS   AND   NURSES 

.  279 

XXXIII. 

THE   LITERARY   CRITICS 

.  290 

XXXIV. 

REVOLUTION? 

.  300 

12 


ABOUT  IT  AND  ABOUT 

THE    BRITISH    MATRON 

THAT  the  people  of  England  have  too 
good  a  conceit  of  themselves  has  often 
been  alleged  by  their  neighbours  of  Wales  and 
Scotland.  They  are  said  to  have  a  habit  of 
calling  English  many  things  which  can  only  be 
properly  covered  by  a  wider  adjective.  They 
talk  of  English  literature,  or  England's  effort 
in  the  war,  as  though  Sir  Walter  Scott  had  never 
written  and  there  had  never  been  a  Mr.  Lloyd 
George.  As  my  place  of  birth  was  in  the 
Channel  Islands,  I  have  examined  the  matter 
in  a  neutral  spirit,  and  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  charge  is  ill  founded.  The 
more  inclusive  word  is,  I  find,  freely  used  for 
those  institutions  which  seem  most  to  have  a 
quality  of  permanence,  and  in  which,  despite 
an  occasional  grumble,  the  greatest  pride  is 
taken.  Invariably,  one  hears  of  the  British 
Navy,  the  British  Constitution,  and  the  British 
Workman.     To  the   soldier  this  term  may  be 

13 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

less  commonly  applied,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  in  normal  times  the  English  do  not  think 
about  soldiers  apart  from  a  few  regiments  such 
as  the  British  Grenadiers.  Of  literature  they 
seldom  think  at  all. 

With  the  ground  thus  cleared,  I  venture  to 
approach  the  British  Matron.  She,  also,  has 
been  regarded  as  of  the  immortals  ever  since 
she  first  appeared  among  us,  though  from  the 
silence  of  certain  old  writers  one  must  judge 
that  she  was  not  always  with  us.  Perhaps 
the  first  positive  reference  to  her  is  made  by 
Thomas  Morton  when,  in  Speed  the  Plough,  he 
mentions  her  as  Mrs.  Grundy,  a  name  which 
was  to  be  remembered  long  after  the  rest  of 
the  author's  creation  had  passed  from  memory. 
Frequently  she  has  been  reviled,  but  always 
she  has  stood  her  ground,  and  so  has  won  a  right 
to  our  consideration.  "  Who  would  not  fall, 
with  all  the  world  about  her  ?  "  Ben  Jonson, 
who  knew  her  not,  yet  may  have  had  some  faint 
prevision  of  her  coming,  provided  the  words 
for  her  answer :  "  Not  I,  that  would  stand  on 
it,  when  it  falls."  Yes,  and  if  my  estimate 
of  her  be  correct,  would  even  give  it  just  one 
more  downward  push  in  honour  of  her  own 
upstanding  virtues.     She  would  do  it,  too,   as 

14 


THE        BRITISH        MATRON 

she  has  done  so  many  other  things,  for  the  sake 
of  example. 

Her  period  of  least  questioned  power  coincided 
with  the  first  fifty  years  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign, 
and  her  pride  is  that  in  that  age  were  women 
respected  as  they  never  have  been  respected 
either  before  or  since.  She  says  that  she  made 
the  home  her  sphere,  and  was  supreme  in  it, 
which,  of  course,  is  true,  since  the  husband, 
having  taken  refuge  at  his  club,  did  not  dispute 
her  supremacy.  She  claims  to  have  been  the 
mainstay  of  the  Church  ;  vicars  whom  she  intimi- 
dated and  curates  whom  she  patronized  both 
admit  her  claim's  validity.  With  her  daughters, 
her  endeavour  was  always  to  bring  them  up 
so  that  they  should  become  as  she  was,  and  to 
marry  them  at  least  as  advantageously  as  she 
had  been  married.  Here,  by  the  way,  an  inter- 
esting fact  of  natural  history  emerges.  No  per- 
fect specimen  of  the  British  Matron  is  known 
to  have  been  without  daughters.  The  fully 
developed  stage  has  never  been  reached  by  a 
woman  who  had  sons  alone.  It  looks  almost 
as  though  Nature,  in  her  constant  effort  for 
economy,  will  waste  none  of  her  gifts  on  those 
who  are  not  going  to  transmit  them  to  another 
generation.     The     only     other     explanation     is 

15 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

that  the  British  Matron  could  never  come  to 
completion  save  by  perpetual  practice  in  her 
favourite  occupation  of  being  a  model  to  others. 
In  housekeeping,  as  an  end  and  aim  in  itself, 
quite  apart  from  what  it  might  produce  in  the 
way  of  comfort  or  aesthetic  satisfaction,  she 
believed  firmly  ;  yet,  unlike  her  German  sister, 
she  did  not  always  have  her  girls  thoroughly 
trained  in  it.  If  she  chanced  to  be  a  Countess, 
she  possibly  had  them  taught  to  make  butter 
or  something  which  would  be  similarly  useless, 
and,  therefore,  piquantly  ornamental,  in  any 
state  of  life  to  which  they  were  likely  to  be  called. 
In  any  less  aristocratic  stratum  of  society  she 
pinned  her  faith  to  such  accomplishments  as 
acquaintance  with  the  plays  of  Bov/dler  or  with 
the  musical  glasses.  These  traces  of  inconsistency 
may  be  more  apparent  than  real.  She  educated 
her  daughters  for  marriages,  not  for  married 
life.  There  were  several  things  the  details  of 
which  she  held  it  would  be  better  for  them 
to  find  out  for  themselves,  and  housekeeping 
was  merely  one  of  them.  With  certain  general 
maxims  she  did,  however,  provide  the  dear 
children.  One  was  to  distrust  their  servants ; 
another  was  to  be  guided  by  their  husbands 
on  any  point  where  resistance  might  mean  an 

16 


THE        BRITISH        MATRON 

open  rupture.  Married  lives,  she  reflected, 
were  much  of  a  muchness  as  long  as  there  was 
no  disparity  of  incomes.  Her  girls  would  be 
able  to  judge  how  she  would  have  comported 
herself  when  their  times  of  trial  came.  Confident 
that  she  was  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes,  she  was 
sure  that  every  right-minded  woman  would  be 
wishful  to  mould  herself  on  the  pattern  she 
presented. 

One  knows  fairly  accurately  what  were  her 
ideas  on  art  and  politics.  She  liked  members 
of  her  family  to  have  good  looks,  and  thought 
that  people  in  her  own  social  station  had  a  duty 
of  dressing  well.  Beauty  she  distrusted.  When 
she  suspected  it  in  her  kitchenmaid's  fringe  or 
in  a  painting  of  the  nude,  she  immediately 
wanted  it  to  be  abolished.  Of  course  she  desired 
her  daughter  to  have  accomplishments,  but 
they  and  that  art  of  which  people  raved  in 
Paris  and  elsewhere  were,  thank  goodness,  two 
different  things.  Nevertheless,  her  annual  tour 
of  the  Royal  Academy  showed  she  was  not 
intolerant.  Sometimes  she  had  found  it  not 
unpleasant  to  meet  at  dinner  a  painter  or  writer, 
but,  if  she  mentioned  him  afterwards  in  her 
own  circle  of  friends,  it  would  be  with  a  meaning 
smile  as  though  she  had  to  record  an  encounter 

17  B 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

with  a  very  intelligent  Samoyed  or  a  well-spoken 
Bashi  Bazouk.  Of  all  foreigners  she  was  doubt- 
ful, being  persuaded  that  their  morals  were 
inferior  to  their  manners,  and  what  so  often 
induced  her  to  send  her  girls  to  school  among 
them  I  cannot  divine.  It  would  have  seemed 
wrong  to  her  if  Olive  and  Mabel  had  not  known 
the  French  language,  but  it  would  have  seemed 
worse  had  she  found  them  studying  French 
literature.  Patriotic  she  certainly  was — a  very 
Britannia  in  a  sealskin  coat — but  the  intricacies 
of  home  politics  did  not  interest  her  greatly 
as  long  as  nothing  was  mooted  which  could 
interfere  with  her  status.  She  knew  it  was 
absurd  to  talk  of  raising  others  to  her  level,  and 
criminal  and  yet  more  absurd  to  talk  of  bringing 
her  to  that  of  anybody  else.  Nonconformists 
she  must  have  disliked.  She  had  nothing  specific 
against  their  religious  tenets,  but  she  had  never 
lost  an  opportunity  herself  of  conforming  to 
everything  that  was  established. 

"  Cant  and  inconsistency,"  wrote  Max  O'Rell, 
"  are  the  characteristics  of  the  British  Matron,'* 
but  he  was  a  Frenchman,  and  could  not  have 
been  expected  to  like  her.  She  had  the  virtues 
of  society,  and  they,  as  Emerson  said,  are  the 
vices  of  the  saint.     The  real  question  is  whether 

18 


THE        BRITISH        MATRON 

any  man  liked  her,  and  whether,  at  her  prime,  her 
sex  was  as  honoured  as  her  defenders  would  have 
one  think.  Light  on  the  subject  may  be  thrown 
by  a  glance  at  some  old  volumes  of  Punch, 
that  sure  index  to  the  opinions  of  the  middle- 
aged  middle  classes,  amongst  whom,  if  any- 
where, she  was  revered.  I  can  see  Thackeray 
having  an  eye  on  her  when  he  writes  of  the 
Parisians  and  their  dramatists  "  joking  against 
marriage  ever  since  writing  began,"  and,  again, 
when  in  a  burst  of  exaltation  he  draws  the 
obvious  comparison :  "  We  will  laugh  in  the 
company  of  our  wives  and  children ;  we  will 
tolerate  no  indecorum  ;  we  like  that  our  matrons 
and  girls  should  be  pure."  Yet,  in  the  same 
publication,  Jerrold  and  Leech  were  all  the  while 
engaged  in  vulgarizing  the  married  woman. 
They  may  not  have  joked  against  marriage ; 
they  certainly  jeked  most  cruelly  about  it.  By 
every  means  they  had,  they  made  the  married 
woman  look  ridiculous,  and  half  their  humour 
was  spent  on  showing  how  tiresome  she  was  to 
her  husband.  They  spared  her  at  no  hour  of 
day  or  night.  Leech,  whose  "  truth,  fun,  beauty, 
and  kindness "  Thackeray  had  extolled,  was 
never  kind  to  her.  About  her  bedroom  he 
scattered  her  wearing  apparel,  and  every  article 

19 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

of  it  was  frowsy  and  indescribably  repulsive. 
Perhaps  it  was  all  quite  decorous  ;  emphatically 
it  was  not  aphrodisaic. 

Never,  I  am  afraid,  was  the  British  Matron 
popular,  and  her  influence  for  good  has  been 
too  often  over-rated.  In  the  improvement  of 
manners  she  may  have  had  a  part,  but  in  the 
history  of  morals  she  is  negligible.  I  have 
written  of  her  as  though  she  belonged  to  the 
past,  but  I  know  that  though  she  does  not  belong 
to  our  age  she  is  still  in  it.  Every  few  weeks 
she  writes  to  the  papers  about  some  breach  she 
has  espied  of  the  Grundified  conventions.  Might 
one  ask  her,  as  Martial  asked  Cato,  "  Why  did 
you  come  to  the  theatre  ?  Was  it  only  for  the 
sake  of  going  out  ?  "  The  question  would  be 
useless.  She  has  not  to  enter  public  places  to 
find  impropriety ;  since  her  reign  is  over,  she 
knows  it  must  be  there.  She  has  a  flair  for  it. 
At  times  one  feels  that  she  may  yet  do  some 
good  in  the  world,  but  the  worst  of  it  is  that  she 
so  seldom  lights  on  the  things  which  most  need 
to  be  mended  or  ended.  Poverty  and  cruelty 
have  strange  ways  of  escaping  her  vigilance. 
Vulgarity  she  often  passes  unheeded.  What 
really  rouses  her  to  action  is  the  idea  of  people, 
and  particularly  poor  people  or  young  people, 

20 


THE        BRITISH        MATRON 

enjoying  themselves  in  ways  she  never  knew 
or  has  forgotten.  They  are  not  following  her 
example.  They  are  doing  something  new  and 
different,  and  against  that  sort  of  thing  she 
always  has,  and  always  will,  set  her  face. 


M 


JOHN    BULL 

WHEN  Barnaby  Rudge  and  his  mother 
were  journeying  to  London,  they  met 
on  the  way  a  stout  man  with  a  long  whip.  This 
individual's  name  has  never  been  revealed,  but 
among  his  friends  he  had  various  endearing 
appellations.  He  was  variously  styled  "  a 
country  gentleman  of  the  true  school,"  "  a 
sporting  gentleman,"  "  a  thoroughbred  English- 
man;"  others  called  him  "  a  genuine  John  Bull." 
These  were  several  ways  of  describing  him, 
but  on  one  point  all  his  admirers  were  agreed. 
They  united  in  saying  "  that  it  was  a  pity  there 
were  not  more  like  him,  and  that  because  there 
were  not,  the  country  was  going  to  rack  and  ruin." 
This  same  sentiment  is  still  occasionally 
expressed.  Some  while  ago  John  Bull  left  the 
shires  to  become  a  townsman,  but  it  made  no 
great  change  in  him.  His  sporting  instinct 
remained  as  strong  as  ever,  even  if  he  had  to 
indulge  it  vicariously.  His  belief  that  money 
could  buy  everything,  exemplified  by  his  rage 
when  Barnaby  would  not  sell  the  raven,  did  not 
diminish     but,     if     anything,     increased.      His 

22 


JOHN        BULL 

manners,  brusque  to  the  verge  of  coarseness, 
did  not  improve,  and  his  antipathy  to  strangers 
did  not  lessen. 

Why  there  should  be  complaints  of  his  rarity, 
I  do  not  know.  My  own  object  in  writing  of 
him  is  to  ask  that  he  should  no  longer  be  taken 
as  the  representative  figure  of  England.  Openly 
or  secretly,  we  are  all  ashamed  of  his  graceless 
and  unsocial  ways,  and  our  confidence  in  his  bluff 
virtues  is  waning.  During  the  war,  his  ebulli- 
tions seemed  either  excusable  or  negligible. 
Mr.  Bottomley,  who  claims  to  be  his  complete 
and  latest  embodiment,  added  not  a  little 
to  our  gaiety  in  the  dark  days,  and  created 
annual  merriment  by  his  predictions  that  we 
should  all  be  home  for  Christmas.  His  visit 
to  the  front,  and  his  adventures  there,  were 
voted  by  the  Army  to  be  the  best  jokes  that 
even  he  had  so  far  perpetrated.  "  We  read  him," 
one  soldier  said  to  me,  "  not  because  we  agree 
with  him,  but  for  the  sake  of  a  good  laugh," 
and  just  then  it  would  have  been  hard  to  give 
a  better  reason  for  reading  anything.  At  the 
same  time,  one  could  be  uneasy  at  the  thought 
of  his  paper  in  the  hands  of  foreigners  who  might 
not  understand  our  sense  of  humour.  Mme. 
D'Arblay   once   remarked   that   it   was   ever   a 

28 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

John  Bullish  trait  to  fight  with  better  will  than 
justice,  and  Mr.  Bottomley  trampling  on  the 
ideals  of  the  Allied  cause  was  a  disconcerting 
spectacle  for  those  who  did  not  know  how  to 
discount  him  with  laughter. 

The  time  has  come  for  a  new  standard  of 
humour,  and  John  Bull's  sallies  are  now  only 
obnoxious.  His  old  abuse  of  the  Boche  was  not 
free  from  vulgarity,  but  one  scarcely  demanded 
niceties  of  speech  at  such  a  time  and  with  such 
an  opponent.  Something,  though  not  every- 
thing, was  to  be  said  for  fighting  the  foe  with  his 
own  weapons,  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  find  an 
excuse  for  Mr.  Bottomley 's  more  recent  vitupera- 
tion of  our  Allies.  To  tell  us  that  America  is 
the  new  enemy,  and  that  he  hopes  she  is  in  for 
"  a  good,  strong  taste "  of  labour  troubles, 
is  tactless.  Rather  worse  was  the  vote  against 
the  French  pilots.  When  we  hear  from  the 
same  source  that  an  ambassador  able  "  to  stand 
up  to  President  Wilson  "  is  wanted  for  Washing- 
ton, we  begin  to  wonder  whether  the  Member  for 
Hackney  would  prefer  that  post  to  the  director- 
ship of  peace  propaganda  of  which  he  talks  so 
often.  When  he  refers  to  Lord  Robert  Cecil's 
hope  that  public  opinion  will  become  the  arbi- 
trator   of   international    differences,    and    sums 

24 


JOHN        BULL 


it  up  as  "  nonsense,"  I  am  left  debating  which 
position  he  would  most  unsuitably  fill.  His 
description  of  the  rights  of  small  nations  as 
"  copy-book  piffle  "  is,  of  course,  what  one  would 
expect  from  the  man  whose  "  To  Hell  with 
Serbia "  once  adorned  the  London  hoardings. 
His  triumphant  declaration  that  we  no  longer 
hear  anything  of  "  Wilson's  idealism  and  the 
Fourteen  Points  "  is,  on  the  other  hand,  non- 
sensical enough  to  be  surprising.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  some  of  those  points  are  as  ubiquitous 
as  King  Charles's  head,  but  even  if  one  did 
not  hear  of  them,  it  would  not  matter.  For 
the  past  month  nobody  has  mentioned  in  my 
presence  the  Norman  Conquest,  the  forty- 
seventh  proposition  of  Euclid,  or  the  Copernican 
system,  but  I  am  sure  I  should  be  wrong  if  I 
interpreted  this  silence  as  meaning  that  I  could 
frame  my  future  conduct  on  an  assumption 
that  these  things  had  ceased  to  influence  me, 
my  country,  or  the  world. 

Having  fought  for  justice  in  partnership  with 
more  than  half  the  civilized  nations  of  the  earth, 
we  now  have  leisure  to  consolidate  our  friend- 
ships. I  agree  with  Mr.  Bottomley  that  there 
is  need  for  peace  propaganda,  but  his  plan  for 
introducing  the  British  bootmaker  to  the  foreign 

2^ 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

tailor  will  not  promote  cordial  relations.  "  Kick 
them  out  and  keep  them  out,"  as  the  foundation 
of  our  foreign  policy,  can  only  result  in  much 
cry  and  little  wool,  though  a  certain  amount 
of  cotton  wool  may  be  required  to  staunch 
wounded  feelings.  As  an  alternative  we  might 
cultivate  decency  of  manners.  The  French 
and  others  do  not  relish  being  called  aliens, 
and  though  it  be  a  small  matter,  we  might 
humour  them  on  it.  We  might  issue  a  manifesto 
expressing  a  hope  that  several  unfavourable 
ideas  about  us  had  been  modified  during  our 
struggle  to  save  civilization.  We  might  even 
follow  it  by  inviting  old  friends  and  neutrals 
to  visit  us  in  greater  numbers  and  to  see  for  them- 
selves that  we  no  longer  sold  our  wives  at  Smith- 
field,  were  rather  less  gloomy  than  formerly  on 
the  Sabbath,  and  that  we  had  learned  to  be  more 
diverse  in  our  culinary  methods  than  Voltaire 
found  us.  Instead,  we  prepare  offensive  measures 
against  immigrants  who  may  have  heard  good 
reports  of  us,  and  surround  ourselves  with  a 
wall  of  which  the  main  features  would  gladden 
an  old-fashioned  Chinaman.  And  yet  all  human 
experience  goes  to  show  that  a  wall,  whilst  it 
repels  friendly  callers,  has  a  magnetic  attraction 
for  mud  slingers. 

26 


JOHN        BULL 


"  Wut's  good's  all  English,  all  that  isn't  ain't," 
wrote  Lowell  in  the  Biglozv  Papers,  and  many 
still  believe  that  in  these  words  are  summarized 
our  whole  national  creed.  The  blatant  John  Bull 
who  lands  at  New  York  or  Boulogne  as  though 
his  mission  were  to  collect  freaks,  and  his  brother 
who  glowers  suspiciously  at  the  rest  of  mankind 
through  an  opaque  telescope,  the  while  he  stays 
at  home  to  consume  his  own  fog,  can  share  the 
blame  between  them.  The  rest  of  us  are  amiable, 
but  seldom  audible.  Perhaps  the  truth  is  that 
as  a  race  we  are  better  at  defiance  than  defence. 
When  some  one  calls  us  a  nation  of  shopkeepers, 
we  reply  that  we  are  proud  of  it,  and  promptly 
claim  to  be  the  best  shopkeepers,  though  anybody 
acquainted  with  the  large  cities  of  America  and 
the  Continent  knows  that  we  are  making  an 
idle  boast.  Had  we  said  that  there  was  still, 
unfortunately,  a  lot  we  could  be  taught  abou^t 
shops,  but  that  we  did  happen  to  be  a  nation 
of  poets,  there  would  have  been  no  gainsaying 
our  claim.  In  many  places  between  China  and 
Peru,  where  the  name  of  the  late  Mr.  Whiteley 
cuts  no  ice,  one  can  be  honoured  by  making  it 
clear  that  one  comes  from  the  land  of  Shakespeare, 
Milton,  and  Shelley. 

John   Bull,    however,    will   never   mention    a 

27 


ABOUT       IT        AND        ABOUT 

poet,  except  to  jape  about  his  hair.  Should  he 
light  on  anybody  whose  interests  are  neither 
sporting  nor  commercial,  he  hastily  exclaims  that 
he,  at  any  rate,  is  not  a  "  high-brow."  As  to 
making  friends  with  foreigners,  he  would  as  soon 
seek  congenial  society  in  the  monkey-house  at 
the  Zoo  as  amongst  those  who  do  not  habitually 
talk  English.  A  holiday  on  the  Continent  at 
some  John  Bullish  resort  is,  naturally,  another 
matter,  though  its  enjoyment  may  be  marred 
by  having  from  time  to  time  to  utter  sounds 
in  a  language  not  his  own.  In  such  an  unfor- 
tunate event,  he  will  do  his  best  to  give  them  a 
true  English  flavour.  French  with  all  the  vowels 
broadened  to  bursting  is  the  furthest  he  will 
go  in  the  way  of  compromise  between  dignity 
and  convenience.  French  which  more  closely 
imitated  the  French  fashion  of  speaking  it  would 
be  pandering  to  prejudices  he  does  not  respect. 
But,  perhaps,  the  part  of  the  holiday  he  enjoys 
most  is  his  return  home  when  he  regales  his 
cronies  with  tales  of  the  shocking  things  he  has 
seen,  and  can  hint  to  his  women-folk  of  what 
lewd  fellows  those  others  are.  If  we  must  have 
an  Aliens'  Bill,  could  we  not  balance  it  by  a  law 
to  prohibit  any  Briton  from  crossing  the  sea 
without    testimonials    from    three    responsible 

28 


JOHN        BULL 


persons  to  the  effect  that  he  was  not  likely  to 
disgrace  us  abroad  ? 

Admittedly,  there  have  been  good  Englishmen 
who  had  in  them  more  than  a  touch  of  John  Bull- 
ishness. Dr.  Johnson  had  it  often,  and  displayed 
it  when  he  growled  about  the  Scots  invading 
England,  but  he  took  one  of  them  to  be  his 
devoted  friend.  Cobbett  almost  flaunted  it, 
but,  when  he  saw  his  countrymen  flogged  by 
Germans,  he  flew  into  a  temper,  had  a  protest 
printed,  and  paid  a  fine  of  a  thousand  pounds 
for  his  pains.  He  was  ready,  you  see,  to  pay 
for  his  patriotism,  and  did  not  look  to  make 
a  profit  from  it.  I  used  to  fancy  Mr.  Chesterton 
would  carry  on  the  tradition,  but  something 
has  restrained  him.  Probably  he  has  noticed 
that  the  modern  John  Bull  has  a  countenance 
which  proclaims  kinship  with  the  Shylock 
family.  This  fact  was  impressed  on  me  by  an 
election  address  I  once  received  from  a  gentleman 
whose  name  is  familiar  to  every  student  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  I  learned  from  it  how 
conglomerated  greed  could  be  disguised  as  love 
of  country.  "  England  for  the  Engleesh  "  was, 
of  course,  its  burden.  It  is  a  pity  that  Mr. 
Bottomley  should  have  picked  up  the  mantle 
which    Mr.    Chesterton    rejected,    for    he    is    a 

29 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

native  of  this  island,  and,  therefore,  under  no 
necessity  to  rant  about  it.  Moreover,  he  is  a 
kindly  man.  If  he  is  not  always  on  the  side  of 
the  angels,  he  has  always  taken  an  equally 
honourable  and,  perhaps,  more  clearly  dis- 
interested place  on  the  side  of  the  animals. 
Decidedly,  his  heart  is  in  the  right  place.  His 
efforts  to  spit  the  dove  of  peace,  and  roast  it 
instead  of  a  turkey  for  another  Christmas  dinner 
in  the  trenches,  can  only  be  explained  on  the 
assumption  that  his  head  is  not  screwed  on  the 
right  way. 


30 


THE    YOUNG    LADY 

YOUNG  ladies  are  said  to  be  a  disappearing 
class.  They  were  exquisite  upon  a 
Watteau  fan,  and  in  the  Pump  Room  at  Bath 
must  have  been  charming,  but  it  is  doubted 
whether  there  is  any  place  for  them  in  the  world 
to-day.  Jane  Austen's  schoolgirl  whom  Scott  de- 
scribed as  "  very  good-humoured,  very  silly,  very 
pretty,  and  very  much  disposed  to  be  married  " 
was  the  young  lady  of  her  period  in  embryo, 
and,  fortunately  for  herself,  she  never  had  to 
wrestle  with  such  difficulties  as  earning  a  living 
or  getting  home  on  a  tram-car,  nor  was  she 
faced  with  the  present  scarcity  of  husbands. 
Some  are  already  crying  that  she  can  be  of 
interest  only  to  the  antiquarian.  There  have, 
it  is  true,  been  great  changes,  and  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century  has  passed  since  Mr.  Miller, 
of  Oneida  Creek,  wrote  of  "  The  Strike  of  a  Sex." 
It  is  a  long,  long  trail  a-winding  from  Fanny 
Burney  to  Miss  Rebecca  West,  and  even  in  the 
crowd  things  have  not  been  at  a  standstill. 
The  typical  English  girl  of  the  present  moment 
would  be  more  than  half  inclined  to  resent  being 

31 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

called  a  young  lady,  a  name  which,  as  Stevenson 
said,  has  "  such  niminy  associations."  Yet  I 
should  not  like  to  tell  her  she  was  not  one,  and 
in  my  heart  of  hearts  I  question  whether  the 
alteration  in  her  has  been  as  great  as  either  the 
optimists  or  the  pessimists  affirm. 

Caught  in  a  serious  mood,  Mr.  Justice  Darling 
has  issued  a  jeremiad  on  the  subject  of  young 
women.  "  It  can  be  seen  in  a  walk  along  the 
street,"  he  says,  "  that  they  differ  by  the  width 
of  Heaven  from  what  their  mothers  were."  That 
a  walk  along  the  street  should  be  taken  to  afford 
evidence  for  so  sweeping  a  statement  may  seem 
strange  to  those  who  do  not  possess  the  judicial 
mind,  and  before  endorsing  it  with  all  its  implica- 
tions the  ordinary  observer  would  want  to  follow 
the  accused  to  her  home,  her  office,  and  the 
place  where  she  dances.  One  would,  in  fact, 
have  to  compromise  oneself  seriously,  and  one 
must,  therefore,  be  content  with  suggesting  that 
outward  appearances  are  not  always  safe  indica- 
tions of  a  person's  character  or  status.  When 
I  see  Mr.  Justice  Darling  in  ermine,  I  am,  indeed, 
compelled  to  believe  he  is  a  judge,  but  the  fact 
that  my  neighbour  dresses  in  scarlet  and  uses  a 
superfluity  of  cosmetics  does  not  make  me 
confound  her  with  the   apocalyptic   woman   or 

32 


THE        YOUNG        LADY 

with  Jezebel.  Her  appearance  merely  convinces 
me  that  she  has  a  liking  for  bright  colours  and 
is  not  an  accomplished  artist. 

Whenever  a  condemnation  is  to  be  made  of  the 
fair  sex,  it  is  usual  to  begin  it  with  a  scathing 
reference  to  the  way  in  which  its  members  clothe 
themselves.  Critics  are  constantly  affirming 
that  the  dress  of  our  young  ladies  is  immodest 
and  betokens  the  immodesty  of  its  wearer. 
Let  it  be  granted  that  it  reveals  plainly  the  fact 
that  they  are  bifurcated  beings,  whereas  in 
days  of  train  or  crinoline  it  was  far  easier  to 
imagine  them  as  mermaids,  creatures  out  of 
their  proper  element  on  our  gross  earth.  The 
upper  part  of  their  costume  tends  to  become  as 
scanty  as  the  lower,  and  displays  at  all  hours 
of  the  day  a  profusion  of  beauties  which  more 
careful  generations  concealed  until  the  lamps 
were  lighted  and  dinner  was  served.  Good 
Hannah  More  used  to  urge  that,  if  women  only 
knew  their  interests,  "  they  would  dress  decorously 
.  .  .  and  assume  modesty  as  an  artifice ;  the 
coquet  would  adopt  it  as  an  allurement ;  the 
pure  as  her  appropriate  attraction."  Sydney 
Smith,  having  pondered  these  words,  replied 
that,  if  such  were  the  truth,  nudity  had  become 
a  virtue,  and  no  decent  woman  could  for  the 

33  C 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

future  be  seen  in  clothes.  In  reality,  it  should 
be  recognised  that  what  women  wear  offers  little 
or  no  indication  of  their  disposition.  Bare  necks 
and  gossamer  covered  calves  mean  nothing  in 
particular  to  those  who  display  them.  One 
sees  others  who  decorate  themselves  with 
aigrettes  and  the  plumage  of  birds  of  paradise, 
and  hang  round  their  necks  the  heads  and 
tails  of  slaughtered  beasts  as  a  gamekeeper 
decorates  the  door  of  his  shed,  yet  they  are 
not  consciously  barbarians.  Quite  possibly  they 
have  kind  hearts,  and  have  a  real  affection  for  a 
pet  dog  or  a  canary.  Simply,  they  have  not 
begun  to  reason  about  their  dress.  They  have 
a  vague,  but  usually  correct,  idea  that  it  looks 
nice,  but  that  it  has  any  meaning  does  not 
occur  to  one  in  a  hundred. 

In  all  probability,  it  was  Adam  who  thought 
of  the  fig  leaves.  Were  one  to  find  that  the 
maidens  of  Mayfair  and  Upper  Tooting  had  of 
their  own  free  will  adopted  yashmaks  and  pan- 
talets it  would  be  rash  to  imagine  that  a  reign 
of  prudery  had  begun,  and  if  a  warm  afternoon 
brings  sundry  damsels  on  to  the  Thames  in  their 
night-gowns  it  is  unwise  to  rush  to  opposite 
conclusions.  Only  when  a  fashion  or  a  custom 
has  originated  in  the  male  mind  can  one  trace 

34 


THE        YOUNG        LADY 

it  to  any  deep  design.  The  long  maintained 
ban  on  smoking  by  women  is  a  case  in  point, 
and  its  open  flouting  by  the  modern  young 
lady  shows  that  here  at  least  she  has  gained 
a  victory  for  her  sex.  Dispassionately  regarded, 
it  will  be  seen  that  it  was  on  a  par  with  the 
Victorian  ordinance  which  confined  female 
passengers  to  the  interior  of  the  omnibus  in  all 
its  stuffiness,  whilst  their  lords  enjoyed  the 
air  on  the  top.  If  with  the  aid  of  a  little  fantasy 
one  can  picture  Mr.  Justice  Darling  plodding 
his  homeward  way  one  evening  from  the  Law 
Courts,  one  can  imagine  him  not  a  little  scandalized 
by  the  number  of  girls  who  smoke  openly  in  the 
streets  when  dusk  has  fallen.  Maybe  he  would 
only  notice  their  cigarettes  as  so  many  signs  of 
the  decay  in  public  morals,  but  were  he  to  speak 
with  two  or  three  of  the  crowd  he  would  discover 
that  others  were  condemning  the  practice  for 
other  reasons.  Smith  could  tell  him  that  his 
difficulty  in  obtaining  "  yellow  perils "  was 
largely  due  to  feminine  competition  for  those 
fragrant  weeds.  Jones,  too,  could  tell  a  piteous 
tale  of  his  fiancee's  affection  for  yet  more  ex- 
pensive brands,  and  add  that  her  new  liking 
for  "  Abdul  Hamids  "  had  in  no  way  lessened 
her  pristine  love  of  chocolates.     One  has  heard 

35 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

of  certain  cunning  savages  who  made  eggs  taboo 
V  for  women  in  order  that  they  might  eat  them  all 
themselves,  and  civilized  man  is  not  in  wit  be- 
hind the  savage,  but  in  at  least  one  or  two  small 
matters  he  has  been  outwitted  by  his  sisters. 

Another  change  alleged  in  the  habits  of  the 
young  lady  is  in  her  choice  of  literature.  Alder- 
man Evans,  of  Lambeth,  who,  for  all  I  know  to 
the  contrary,  may  be  an  authority  on  the  subject, 
declares  that  at  the  age  of  seven  she  begins  to 
read  the  works  of  Mrs.  Elinor  Glyn.  Such  a 
state  of  affairs  may  make  a  moralist  sigh  for 
days  when  "  Chapone's  instructive  volume " 
lay  open  on  every  girl's  toilette  table,  but  it 
has  never  been  proved  that  the  pages  of  that 
remarkable  treatise  were  often  turned.  Sukey 
Saunter  and  Lydia  Languish  found  more  congenial 
matter  in  such  romances  as  The  Mistakes  of 
the  Heart  and  The  Innocent  Adultery,  and  Sir 
Anthony  Absolute  was  not  speaking  at  random 
when  he  compared  the  circulating  library  to  an 
evergreen  tree.  Titles  alter,  but  the  young 
lady's  taste  in  novels  is  little  affected  by  years 
and  seasons,  though  it  nust  be  allowed  to  her 
credit  that  she  no  longer  attempts  to  conceal 
her  gingerbread  fiction  in  the  cover  of  a  book 
of   sermons. 

36 


THE        YOUNG        LADY 

Sukey  and  Lydia  were  taught  the  virtue 
of  concealment.  Little  Dorrit  was  told  that 
"  nothing  disagreeable  should  ever  be  looked 
at."  There  was  once  a  child  who  ran  to  her 
governess,  and,  in  unquotable  words,  borrowed 
from  the  gardener's  boy,  informed  her  that  she 
was  suffering  from  the  heat.  "  My  dear," 
her  mentor  replied,  "  animals  sweat ;  men 
perspire ;  but  young  ladies  only  glow."  Thus, 
at  an  early  age  was  it  impressed  on  the  small 
girl  that  she  was  a  being  Providence  had  set 
apart  from  the  rest  of  creation.  Though  the 
sun  looked  to  shine  with  equal  force  on  her 
and  her  brothers,  the  results  upon  them  were  not 
allowed  to  be  the  same.  Mother  Nature,  coarse 
an  old  woman  as  she  might  be,  had  suspended 
certain  laws  in  favour  of  the  daughters  of  the 
genteel,  whilst,  for  those  which,  unfortunately, 
still  operated,  an  elegant  patchwork  cloak  of 
hushes  and  euphistic  words  had  been  invented. 
Advancing  in  her  teens,  the  young  lady  may  have 
found  the  suspensions  fewer  than  she  had  been 
led  to  expect,  but  mother,  aunts,  and  governess 
were  constantly  adding  to  the  cloak's  length. 
In  the  end  it  almost  completely  concealed  her 
from  herself. 

"  Fanny,"    said    Mrs.    General,    "  at    present 

87 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

forms  too  many  opinions.  Perfect  breeding 
forms  none."  The  time,  one  fears,  has  come 
when  Fanny  must  form  an  opinion,  even  if 
breeding  is  thereby  thrown  to  the  winds.  She 
must  decide  for  herself  about  herself.  The 
young  lady  of  the  past  was  generally  content 
to  live  in  a  garden  enclosed,  taking  no  more 
than  a  few  peeps  through  a  chink,  but  she  who 
is  now  with  us  has  scaled  the  wall  after  throwing 
some  preliminary  stones  over  it.  What  she 
intends  to  do  is  uncertain,  and  her  present 
position  is  anomalous.  During  the  war  she 
showed  both  desire  and  ability  to  be  a  useful 
member  of  society.  If  she  wants  employment, 
one  does  not  wish  to  see  her  denied  it,  but  it  is 
scarcely  fair  to  her  at  the  same  time  to  be  keeping 
a  man  from  his  job  and  demanding  everything 
but  pin-money  from  her  father.  If  she  has 
decided  to  choose  her  own  dresses,  let  her  give 
some  thought  to  her  choice,  and,  if  there  is  to 
be  no  censorship  of  her  reading,  one  would  beg 
her  at  once  to  develop  her  own  critical  faculties. 
Whether  she  determines  to  be  a  genuine  wage- 
earner  or  not,  to  wear  her  skirts  long  or  short 
or  tight  or  full,  to  read  natural  history  or  romance, 
all  will  be  well  if  there  be  some  reason  behind 
her    decisions.      Oscar   Wilde    came    very    near 

38 


THE        YOUNG        LADY 

the  truth  when  he  wrote  that  all  that  is  realized 
is  right,  and  that  shallowness  is  the  supreme 
vice. 

All  the  young  lady's  past,  all  the  past,  too, 
of  her  ancestresses,  is  against  her.     An  acknow- 
ledged  part   of  her   education   and   theirs   was 
"  to  keep  ideas  from  getting  into  the  girl's  head." 
She  has  been  starved  of  ideas  for  generations, 
and  is  now  trying  to  make  her  way  through  the 
world  with  no  more  illumination  than  that  of 
the  cigarette  she  has  lighted  for  herself.     Like 
Amy  Dorrit,  she  may  say  that  she  requires  a 
little   time,    although   a   learned   judge,    in   the 
role  of  Papa  Dorrit,  frowns  and  looks  anything 
but  pleased.     It  is  too  late  to  talk  of  bundling 
her  back  into  the  care  of  a  Mrs.  General  or  a 
Mrs.  Malaprop,  for  already  she  has  taken  a  step 
or  two  into  "  the  contagious  countries."     Nor 
is  it  any  good  merely  to  scold  her.     She  has  been 
a  chrysalis,  and  is  now  alternately  blamed  for 
having  emerged  as  a    butterfly   or  worker-bee, 
with  all  the  defects  of  either  insect.     Give  her 
the   time   she   requires.     Perhaps   she   will  curl 
up,  and,  in  the  full  sense  of  the  term,  become 
a  young  lady  again,  even  though  she  will  have 
no  duenna  to  aid  her.     Or,  possibly,  she  may 
spread  herself,  and  presently  become  a  woman. 

39 


THE    PUBLIC    SCHOOL 

"  'T^HE  world,"  said  Dr.  Butler  of  Shrewsbury, 
•*■  "  is  content  with  moderate  acquisitions." 
Were  one  to  read  through  a  list  of  the  headmasters 
of  our  public  schools  for  the  last  hundred  years, 
one  would  find  no  more  than  half  a  dozen 
names  more  eminent  than  his,  and  not  one 
more  representative.  An  Arnold  of  Rugby  or 
a  Thring  of  Uppingham  is  a  person  foredoomed 
to  veneration.  Their  successors  speak  the 
mystic  word  personality,  and  sigh  of  a  place 
that  cannot  be  filled,  but  in  a  few  months  nobody 
wants  to  fill  it.  They  continue  to  be  held  in 
pious  memory  and  to  be  extolled  on  speech 
days,  but  there  is  comfort  in  the  hour  when  in 
the  discreet  company  of  the  common-room  some 
small  absurdity  is  remembered  about  the  de- 
parted and  a  little,  quite  reverent,  laugh  is  heard. 
Even  in  scholastic  circles  they  can  have  enough 
of  praising  famous  men.  Hawtrey,  to  whom 
Gladstone  said  he  owed  everything,  passed  with 
the  habit  of  quoting  Homer  in  public  and  a 
genuine  appreciation  of  port.  Waves  upon 
waves  of  boisterous  athletes  have  rushed  through 

40 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

the  citadel  of  his  fine  gentlemanliness.  Butler, 
however,  is  still  a  model.  He  did  almost  every- 
thing that  a  headmaster  is  expected  to  do  to-day. 
He  brought  his  school  from  obscurity  to  fame. 
He  increased  its  numbers,  made  his  boys  win 
many  scholarships  at  the  Universities,  made 
Eton  look  to  its  laurels.  The  question  of  blues 
was  not  paramount  in  his  time,  but  he  would 
have  been  the  last  to  refuse  supply  when  once 
a  demand  had  been  widely  and  definitely  made. 
He  believed  in  making  the  best  of  things  as  he 
found  them,  and  in  the  world's  contentment 
with  moderate  acquisitions. 

Based  on  those  two  beliefs,  the  public  schools 
have  stood  for  a  century.  If  they  have  been 
in  the  family,  we  have  accepted  them.  If  they 
have  not  been  in  the  family,  we  have  striven 
to  remedy  that  defect.  A  public  school  education, 
like  a  ghost  either  hereditary  or  acquired  through 
purchase  of  landed  property,  is  a  hall-mark  of 
social  position.  It  serves,  in  lieu  of  any  other 
evidence,  to  establish  a  claim  to  being  of  the 
select.  The  soldier  who  applied  for  a  commission 
had  the  opportunity  to  notice  the  approval  of 
his  company  officer  if  he  could  announce  that 
he  came  from  Eton,  Harrow,  or  Giggleswick. 
There   were   varying   degrees   of  approval,    but 

41 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

all  were  approved,  and  discipline  might  for  a 
moment  be  waived  in  the  friendly  chat  that 
followed.  "  Were  you  there  with  old  So-and- 
So  ? "  "In  the  eleven  when  he  made  the 
century  against  us  ?  "  "  Good  man  !  "  And 
familiarity  bred  respect. 

Let  none  deny  the  benefits  which  his  public 
school  has  brought  him  if  he  has  moved  in  the 
right  circles.  The  fraternity  of  old  boys  has 
been  a  sort  of  mutual  benefit  society,  even 
an  Empire  within  an  Empire.  Whether  that 
coterie  spirit  has  been  harmful  to  the  whole 
community,  and  had  a  deadening  effect  on  the 
very  individuals  who  have  shared  in  it,  is  another 
matter.  Perhaps  a  more  important  point  is 
whether  the  acknowledged  benefits,  including 
the  hall-mark  and  membership  of  a  caste  with 
an  entrance  fee,  are  going  to  count  for  as  much 
in  the  life  of  a  boy  now  at  school  as  they  did 
in  the  lives  of  his  elders. 

At  present,  many  are  busy  with  talk  of  reform. 
Mr.  Alec  Waugh  has  written  his  "  Loom  of 
Youth "  for  our  information,  and,  Mr.  Owen 
Nares  being  chairman,  has  lectured  us.  Mr. 
Mais,  who  was  his  mentor  at  Sherborne,  has 
also  belaboured  the  system  and  profession  he 
adorns.     It  has  all  been  highly  interesting,  but 

42 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

in  those  who  can  look  on  the  public  schools 
with  detachment,  it  has  created  only  the  mildest 
surprise.  All  they  tell  with  bated  breath  has  been 
known  for  years,  for  such  things  will  out  despite 
the  league  of  silence  to  which  all  the  old  boys  were 
supposed  to  belong.  That  they  should  openly 
proclaim  what  everybody  has  muttered  is  almost 
the  only  remarkable  feature  in  their  campaign. 
For  the  rest  they  are  zealous  reformers,  loving 
what  they  would  correct,  and  quite  unaware  that 
they  are  dealing  with  a  phantom,  that  is  to  say, 
with  something  that  is  incorrigible  though  it 
may  be  exorcised.  If  they  succeed  in  grafting 
on  their  disembodied  spirit  a  few  odd  slices  of 
human  flesh,  they  will  have  accomplished  as  much 
as  they  seem  to  desire,  but  we  shall  not  mistake 
the  patched  apparition  for  a  human  body. 

The  truth  is  that  they  are  taking  their  public 
schools  too  seriously.  None  of  our  reformers  has 
been  particularly  helpful.  Some  fourteen  years 
ago  a  well-known  dramatic  critic,  disguised  under 
the  name  of  "  Kappa,"  wrote  an  indictment  of 
the  existing  system  in  a  book  entitled  Let 
Youth  But  Know.  It  was  whispered  that  the 
writer's  son  had  recently  failed  to  make  a  "  first " 
at  the  University,  and  one  surmised  that  the 
attack    was    partly    self-defence    after    young 

48 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

hopeful  had  failed  to  give  convincing  proof  of 
inherited  abilities.  The  book,  however,  contains 
some  sound  ideas,  and  it  served  to  set  rolling  a 
ball  which  has  ever  since  been  kicked  vigorously, 
if  not  always  accurately,  by  Mr.  Wells.  In 
The  Undying  Fire  one  can  note  that  he  has 
done  with  mechanical  science.  Once  he  believed 
in  salvation  coming  with  the  aeroplane,  but 
when  the  aeroplane  came  it  dropped  bombs 
over  London,  and  the  effect  on  him  was  almost 
as  disgruntling  as  was  the  Oxford  honours' 
list  on  "  Kappa."  Mr.  Wells  has  changed  his 
curriculum.  We  are  to  have  world-history  and 
logic  now.  Splendid :  especially  if  we  have 
them    again    to-morrow. 

What  we  have  begun  to  feel  is  that  our  civiliza- 
tion would  not  be  seriously  incommoded  if 
the  public  school  system  as  we  have  known  it 
were  to  cease  forthwith.  In  the  great  period 
of  the  classics,  when  masters  pored  over  the 
humanities  and  were  not  expected  to  enter  the 
Rugger  scrum,  that  might  have  meant  the  end 
of  scholarship.  The  same  objection  cannot  be 
advanced  to-day.  Long  ago  it  was  decided 
that  the  old  pedant,  with  all  his  store  of  meticulous 
and  often  beautiful  knowledge,  must  make  way 
for  an   instructor   more   vigorous   and   a   shade 

44 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

more  practical,  and  scholarships  rather  than 
scholarship  became  the  end  in  view.  Lately, 
too,  we  have  made  some  strange  discoveries. 
We  have  found  that  men  who  know  not  the 
"  exact  languages  of  Rome  and  Greece "  can 
produce  English  poetry.  Others  who  never 
learned  to  wield  the  cane  as  prefects  have  shown 
capacity  as  leaders  of  men.  The  Eton  and 
Harrow  monopoly  of  Prime  Ministers  has  been 
broken.  Neither  art  nor  science  would  greatly 
mourn  were  the  public  school  ghost  to  be  finally 
laid.  Of  course,  the  old  public  school  man  is 
acknowledged  to  have  a  nice  taste  in  dress, 
and  would  never  commit  the  solecism  of  wearing 
a  white  tie  with  a  dinner  jacket,  or  flannels  and 
brown  boots  with  either,  but  I  would  put  it 
to  any  parent  that  an  hour's  private  tuition  with 
a  good  tailor  or  waiter  could  set  a  son  on  the 
right  path  with  some  saving  of  expense. 

Athletics  would,  perhaps,  suffer  from  the 
change.  I  am  told  that  we  simply  must  teach 
lawn  tennis  at  our  schools  if  we  are  to  hold  our 
own  against  the  Czecho-Slovaks,  but  I  am  not 
wholly  convinced.  Is  it  not  possible  that  the 
game  is  popular  just  because  it  was  never  made 
a  monotonous  task  ?  Fielding  once  wrote  that 
public  schools  were  the  nurseries  of  all  immorality, 

45 


ABOUT       IT        AND        ABOUT 

and  the  charge,  invariably  contradicted  by  those 
who  ought  best  to  know,  is  still  from  time  to 
time  repeated.  For  the  sake  of  avoiding  argu- 
ment let  it  be  agreed  that  things  have  altered 
for  the  better,  but  it  remains  that  virtues  are 
harder  to  reform  than  vices.  The  cult  of  play 
is  a  joyful  thing,  and  the  cult  of  athletics  healthy. 
Since  Cleisthenes  won  the  chariot  race  as  champion 
of  the  gods  in  the  Pythian  games  it  has  always 
seemed  that  prowess  in  sport  is  in  itself  somehow 
virtuous.  But  its  modern  votaries  have  grown 
either  hysterical  or  pompous.  One  remembers 
a  chapter  in  The  Hill,  where  Mr.  Vachell's  ideal 
house-master  is  so  overcome  by  excitement  that 
he  dare  not  watch  the  close  finish  of  a  cricket 
match.  The  incident  was  no  novelist's  exaggera- 
tion. The  author  had  in  mind  "Bob"  Grimston, 
a  real  Harrow  master,  who  found  his  nerves 
untrustworthy  on  such  occasions. 

In  a  recent  work  on  education  Dr.  Lyttelton 
made  the  rather  obvious  statement  that  it  was 
a  mistake  to  suppose  masters  had  not  as  many 
faults  and  failings  as  their  fellow  men.  True 
enough ;  but  it  is  not  their  faults  which  have 
brought  their  work  to  its  present  pass.  Rather 
one  would  blame  their  colourlessness  than  any 
scarlet   sin.      If    one   consults    Who's    Who   for 

46 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

particulars  as  to  the  headmasters  of  our  leading 
public  schools,  one  sees  an  alarming  sameness 
in  their  tastes.  Golf,  cricket,  fishing,  and 
mountain  walking  occupy  the  leisure  of  most. 
Their  eccentricities  are  rare  and  small.  He 
of  Uppingham  ventures  to  belong  to  the  National 
Liberal  Club,  and  he  of  Sherborne  has  edited 
Wordsworth,  which  is  about  as  far  as  a  headmaster 
can  be  expected  to  go  in  English  literature  with- 
out positive  loss  of  decorum.  Yet  one  could 
wish  that  two  or  three  of  this  careful  company 
would  do  something  dangerous  enough  to  save 
one  the  trouble  of  searching  works  of  reference 
for  elementary  information  as  to  what  they  stand 
for  in  the  world. 

Maybe  they  stand  only  for  the  public  school 
system,  and  there  would  be  no  collapse  of  educa- 
tion were  most  of  them  to  go  with  it.  A  little 
confusion  at  first ;  a  good  deal  of  re-arrangement 
afterwards ;  at  least  a  new  hope  born.  The 
gain  might  well  outweigh  the  loss.  It  might  be 
found  that  they  were  no  more  necessary  to  the 
British  Isles  than  were  the  Hapsburgs  to  Europe. 
Educational  leaders  would,  perhaps,  arise  with 
a  clean  slate  to  use,  and  write  on  it  the  lesson 
that  mediocrity  must  no  longer  content  us. 

Meanwhile,  the  final  confession  of  the  public 

47 


ABOUT        IT         AND      ABOUT 

schools'  impotence  as  an  agent  in  forming 
character  has  been  published  by  one  of  its 
unsuspicious  champions.  A  certain  Mr.  E.  C. 
Arnold,  long  a  master  at  Eastbourne  College,  has 
written  a  letter  to  the  editor  of  The  Observer. 
Its  object  is  a  defence  of  "  shore  shooting " 
against  those  who  would  have  more  stringent 
protection  for  bird  life,  but  with  that  controversy 
I  am  not  here  concerned.  The  reason  of  his 
defence  is  what  touches  me.  "  The  holidays," 
says  he,  "  are  a  ticklish  time  for  budding 
youth."  Of  games,  he  tells  us,  the  boys  are 
"  a  bit  tired."  When  for  a  few  weeks  they  are 
allowed  to  enter  a  bisexual  world,  he  fears  for 
them  the  lures  of  the  rink  and  such  like  awful 
places.  Hence  his  cry  that  we  must  not  dis- 
courage their  sport  with  guns.  Seemingly,  the 
only  choice  is  between  flesh  and  blood. 

"  The  holidays  are  a  ticklish  time."  The 
boy  may  be  made  to  behave  moderately  well  at 
school,  but  his  training  is  such  that  he  cannot 
be  trusted  outside  the  school  precincts.  And 
yet,  in  a  year  or  two,  perhaps  in  a  few  months, 
he  is  to  be  set  at  large. 

Side  by  side  with  the  bankruptcy  of  the  old 
system,  experiments  in  a  new  order  are,  most 
happily,  being  tried,     News  comes  to  me  from 

48 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

one  school  in  the  North  where  a  whole  form  is 
successfully  governing  itself.  The  master  has  sus- 
pended his  powers  of  punishment,  and  is  simply 
a  teacher.  He  and  the  boys  elect  "  officers  " 
to  preserve  discipline,  and  discipline  is,  in  fact, 
kept  by  all  because  none  wants  a  return  to  the 
ways  of  the  past.  There,  too,  it  is  no  longer 
held  criminal  for  a  boy  to  talk  or  to  walk  with 
a  girl  in  the  town.  Self-restraint  goes  hand  in 
hand  with  self-reliance. 

"  Budding  youth  "  is  not,  after,  all  quite  the 
feeble  article  that  Mr.  E.  C.  Arnold  thinks  it, 
and  that  most  masters  make  it.  Co-education 
is  almost  universal  in  the  United  States,  and 
has  been  tried  here  timidly  but  with  good  results. 
The  faults  found  in  it  can  all  easily  be  remedied. 
Mr.  J.  L.  Paton,  no  mean  authority  on  education, 
has  written  that  those  who  believed  in  the 
intrinsic  goodness  of  boys  and  girls  have  been 
justified  of  their  children.  When  we  can  rid 
ourselves  of  the  incubus  of  the  public  school 
tradition  and  all  its  bolstering  of  premeditated 
humbug,  we  may  finish  with  the  unnatural 
segregation  of  the  sexes,  and  there  may  be  less 
ticklishness  about  the  holidays.  Masters  may 
no  longer  have  to  moan  that  first  sight  of  a 
female  turns  their  young  charges  into  rakes. 

49  D 


THE    BRASS    HATS 

THE  brass  hat  has  gone  out  of  fashion,  and 
if  ever  it  is  to  be  rehabilitated  it  will  have 
to  be  worn  with  a  difference.  Other  cumber- 
some forms  of  headgear  may  for  a  while  be 
restored  to  favour  because  of  the  pleasant  hint 
they  convey  of  all  being  well  again  with  the  world 
of  their  wearers.  But  no  such  fancy  lingers 
round  the  brass  hat.  Its  fate  is  sealed.  Even 
in  Whitehall  and  thereabouts  the  man  beneath 
it  walks  with  the  air  of  one  who  wishes  he  were 
less  conspicuously  marked.  Further,  one  knows 
that  the  future  haunts  him ;  he  foresees  an 
inevitable  moment  when  grandchildren  will  ask 
him  what  he  did  in  the  great  war.  Better  for 
him  if  he  had  been  demobilized  with  one  or  two 
modest  pips  on  his  arms.  Better  if  he  could 
tell  how  he  served  as  a  full  private,  or,  after 
mighty  efforts,  became  an  acting-lance-corporal- 
unpaid.  Such  men,  he  knows,  will  be  held  in 
unquestioning  esteem,  but  how  is  he  to  make 
confession  to  the  rising  generation  which  will  have 
read  the  revelations  of  Lord  French  and  all  the 
counter-revelations  that  are  going  to  make  hay 

50 


THE        BRASS        HATS 

and  hash  of  so  many  of  the  higher  reputations  ? 
And  then  the  next  question  ;  "  Were  you  one 
of  those  who  nearly  lost  the  war  ?  " 

The  declension  of  the  brass  hat  has  been 
gradual.  Its  final  stage  is  reached  when,  in  Pall 
Mall  or  Piccadily,  one  meets  the  general  under 
whom  one  has  served,  and  sees  him  a  common- 
place being  in  undistinguished  mufti.  One  gives 
the  last  gasp  of  wonder.  Of  course  he  has  always 
been  an  ordinary  person  with  that  perfectly 
correct  ordinariness  which  a  good  public  school, 
followed  by  Sandhurst,  so  often  succeeds  in 
creating.  One  had  frequently  suspected  as 
much,  but  until  the  last  moment  remnants  of 
awe  had  stayed.  It  is  hard  to  realize  that  the 
arbiters  of  one's  fate  are  not  somehow  gigantic. 
That  is  why  one  grows  so  impatient  of  the 
brass  hat,  for  it  is  the  symbol  of  a  delusion. 

Undoubtedly,  and  as  was  natural,  the  civilian 
public  took  its  generals  very  seriously  during 
the  war,  even  though  it  only  made,  and  conse- 
quently only  deposed,  one  positive  hero.  Its 
caution  came  from  South  African  memories, 
yet  there  was  much  quiet  confidence.  In  case 
of  a  change,  say  Haig  taking  the  place  of  French, 
it  was  commonly  conceded  that  an  Amurath 
had  succeeded  an  Amurath,  and  little  more  was 

51 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

said  about  it.  If  a  leader  came  home,  the  official 
plea  of  ill-health  was  almost  taken  at  face  value. 
Lay  criticism  seemed  impertinent.  When  the 
course  of  war  did  not  run  smoothly,  the  lawyers 
were  blamed.  The  unknown  is  always  magnifi- 
cent, and  a  curtain  of  mystery  came  down  like 
a  Channel  fog  between  the  people  at  home  and 
the  army  abroad. 

At  a  nearer  view  one  was  less  dazzled.  Even 
in  the  ranks  one  began  to  doubt  the  omniscience 
of  the  mighty  ones,  to  suspect  that  cunning 
adversaries  could  hoodwink  them.  The  not 
altogether  unintelligent  recruit  might  note  how 
his  platoon,  notoriously  bad  at  drill  but  with 
plenty  of  brawn,  was  hustled  off  the  square  to 
dig  a  trench  on  the  morning  of  the  brigadier's 
inspection.  Later,  he  observed  different  bills 
of  fare  for  different  visitors  of  importance  as 
he  and  his  fellows  underwent  days  of  special 
training  and  polish  to  meet  their  various  idiosyn- 
crasies. For  one  it  would  be  all  blood-lust  and 
bayonet ;  for  another  bombs ;  for  a  third  it 
was  possible  to  go  easy  on  brass  and  boots. 
Only  the  arrival  of  a  strange  general  caused 
real  anxiety,  but  even  for  him,  as  one  found 
in  time,  there  was  a  recognized  dope  in  plenty 
of  whitewash  on  the  ropes  put  up  to  receive  it, 

52 


THE        BRASS        HATS 

and  a  sound  brand  of  whisky  in  the  mess. 
On  all  such  occasions  the  good  regimental  officer 
bore  in  mind  Bismarck's  saying  that  one  can  do 
anything  with  children  if  one  will  play  with  them. 
Experience  of  military  life  but  enlarged  one's 
first  suspicions.  Passage  through  a  cadet  school 
to  a  commission  assured  one  that  winning  the 
war  and  killing  Germans  were  not  quite  the  only 
things  that  mattered.  Long  before  the  word 
"  camouflage  "  became  current  coin,  the  British 
Army  had  known  the  value  of  the  thing  called 
eye-wash.  After  a  time,  however,  one  perceived 
new  possibilities  of  utility  in  one's  generals. 
There  was  never  an  hour  so  dark  that  the  latest 
news  of  General  Hunter  Weston  could  not  dispel 
its  despondency.  It  was  necessary  to  keep 
the  troops  cheerful.  Had  he  not  telegraphed 
to  his  corps  the  news  of  his  glorious  victory 
in  North  Ayrshire  to  nerve  them  to  emulative 
successes  ?  Generals,  it  was  discovered,  had 
interests  in  life  which  were  not  wholly  military. 
Pleasant  evenings,  maybe,  were  spent  in  the 
theatre  of  "  Le  Brass  'At,"  where  the  enthusiasm 
of  General  St.  John  Parker,  as  general  manager, 
had  made  the  company  what  it  was,  the  best 
variety  troupe  in  France.  It  would  be  idle  to 
ask  whether  a  second  lieutenant  with  theatrical 

53 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

antecedents  could  not  have  done  as  well.  The 
Financial  Adviser  at  General  Headquarters 
probably  saved  the  country  many  millions, 
but  he  had  to  be  made  a  brigadier  before  anyone 
would  listen  to  him.  Once  upon  a  time,  when 
it  appeared  we  were  not  winning  the  war  in 
correct  English,  a  subaltern  was  appointed  to 
edit  routine  orders  and  suchlike  publications, 
but  the  experiment  failed.  In  the  Army  one 
could  not  with  impunity  weld  the  split  infinitives 
of  a   superior. 

Times  have  changed.  Most  of  us  are  civilians 
now,  and  the  civilian  in  us  is  asserting  himself. 
The  general  whose  nods  and  frowns  have  been 
a  law  has  to  submit  to  the  cross-examination 
of  Mr.  Hogge.  Every  week  something  new  arises 
about  which  the  public  wants  to  know.  Slough 
and  Amritsar  and  the  confidential  circular 
about  strike-breaking  are  simply  three  of  many 
instances.  "  A  soldier,"  cried  Uncle  Toby,  "  is 
no  more  exempt  from  saying  a  foolish  thing 
than  a  man  of  letters,"  and  Corporal  Trim 
replied,  "  But  not  so  often,  an'  please  your 
honour."  That  was  the  eighteenth-century 
view,  but  to-day  one  is  wondering  whether 
the  corporal  was  not  too  optimistic.  Few 
French    officers    were    more    respected    by    the 

54 


THE        BRASS        HATS 

Germans  after  the  war  of  1870  than  General 
Faidherbe,  but  they  put  down  his  failures  to 
there  being  too  much  Morocco  about  him.  About 
our  own  military  leaders  there  is  still  too  much 
India.  Besides,  for  some  years  past  they  have 
been  privileged  to  tell  a  great  part  of  the  nation 
to  go  to  hell,  and  it  may  be  that  they  have  not 
quite  realized  the  change  in  circumstances.  In 
The  DeviVs  Disciple  Mr.  Shaw  wrote  that  he 
never  expected  a  soldier  to  think.  The  war, 
one  imagines,  may  have  made  the  British  people 
more  exacting,  anyhow  in  regard  to  the  highest 
ranks. 

What  to  do  with  our  generals  may  yet  become 
a  pressing  problem.  Our  future  Army,  whatever 
its  size,  will  but  absorb  a  few  of  them,  and  not 
many  will  care  to  descend  to  mere  colonelcies. 
Hitherto  there  have  been  well-marked  paths  for 
senior  officers  on  their  retirement.  The  more 
vigorous  have  frequented  the  suitable  service 
clubs,  and  in  their  precincts  have  for  some  hours 
daily  resumed  the  authority  of  their  rank  in 
such  matters  as  cuts  from  the  joint,  choice  of 
easy  chairs,  and  the  last  word  in  retrospective 
discussion  of  a  hand  at  bridge.  The  rest  have 
betaken  themselves  to  Cheltenham,  Bedford, 
and    the    northern    suburbs    of   Oxford,    places 

65 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

where  they  have  been  thoroughly  at  home, 
and  where  they  have  interested  themselves  in 
croquet,  Christian  Science,  and  the  cultivation 
of  chrysanthemums.  That  men  who  have 
served  their  country  long  and  well  should  so 
end  their  days  shows  no  lack  of  dignity.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  the  only  dignified  thing  to  do. 
It  is  the  jack-in-the-box,  he  who  will  not  accept 
retirement  as  something  definite,  who  shows 
a  petty  spirit. 

It  is  more  than  doubtful,  however,  whether 
the  old  tradition  can  longer  be  maintained. 
Many  of  our  generals  now  are  young,  or  com- 
paratively young,  and  the  war,  which  has  taken 
such  a  toll  of  real  youth,  has  made  others  feel 
far  younger  than  they  are.  There  are  going  to 
be  generals  in  the  City,  in  politics,  in  journalism. 
It  would  be  monstrous  to  cavil  at  their  invasion 
of  civilian  spheres,  especially  as  we  of  late  have 
been  passing  through  some  of  their  preserves, 
but  a  few  words  to  them  as  new  recruits  might 
not  be  out  of  place.  In  the  years  of  war  all 
men  entered  the  Army  equal  and  alike.  Emin- 
ence in  the  arts  of  peace  did  not  save  one 
from  the  sergeant's  chiding  if  one  marched  out 
of  step,  or  from  universal  contumely  if  one 
made   a   mess   of  the  stew.     It   was   better  to 

56 


THE        BRASS        HATS 

forget  what  one  had  been.  To-day  the  posi- 
tions are  reversed.  Is  it  too  much  to  ask  our 
generals  to  forget  their  days  of  despotism,  to 
forget  India,  to  forget  that  they  ever  wore 
brass  hats  ?  On  that  condition,  we,  on  our 
side,  may  be  willing  to  forget  also. 


57 


THE    DIPLOMATISTS 

IN  the  opinion  of  the  common  man,  a  diplo- 
matist is  a  person  employed  to  tell  lies 
for  his  country.  This  view,  like  most  views 
taken  by  the  majority,  is  correct  as  far  as 
it  goes,  but  it  does  not  go  all  the  way. 
Besides  talent  in  prevarication,  sundry  other 
qualifications  have  been  demanded  in  various 
ages  and  countries.  An  Italian  of  the  Renais- 
sance wrote  that  a  diplomatist  should  be 
well  versed  in  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  theology, 
whilst  a  Dutchman  of  the  next  century  held 
that  he  should  be  rich  and  munificent.  Ability 
to  drink  the  natives  under  the  table  used  to 
be  a  high  credential  for  envoys  to  the  Courts  of 
Northern  Europe,  and  youth  and  good  com- 
plexions were  advisable  in  members  of  an  embassy 
to  Catherine  the  Great.  More  recently,  the  late 
Sir  Hamilton  Seymour,  when  giving  evidence 
before  a  select  committee  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, confessed  that  he  had  no  idea  of  a  man 
being  a  good  diplomatist  who  did  not  give  good 
dinners. 

The  good   dinner  theory,   which  really  sum- 

58 


THE        DIPLOMATISTS 

marises  most  of  the  others,  had  in  it  elements  of 
reason,  and  remains  in  force.  If  polite  society 
no  longer  discusses  divinity  and  philosophy,  it 
still  likes  to  be  entertained  at  meals  by  informa- 
tive talk  on,  for  example,  polo  and  the  ballet.  If 
heavy  drinking  is  no  longer  the  fashion,  a  host's 
ability  to  provide  a  good  vintage  is  the  more 
appreciated,  and  wealth  is  more  necessary  than 
ever  to  the  internal  satisfaction  of  epicures. 
To  the  less  grave,  the  board  which  is  not  sur- 
rounded by  beauty  and  handsome  presences, 
though  it  offer  Tokay  and  quails  in  aspic,  promises 
but  a  barmecide  banquet.  When  whole  countries 
were  no  more  than  the  personal  estates  of  their 
sovereigns,  or  even  when  some  half-dozen  semi- 
constitutional  Ministers  held  mankind  in  their 
hands,  the  touch  of  Lucullus  might  make  the 
whole  world  kin.  The  first  league  of  nations 
was  the  holy  alliance  of  the  gourmets. 

Considering  what  has  been  and  is  expected 
of  the  diplomatist  in  social  intercourse,  the  £400 
on  which  our  Foreign  Office  insists  as  the  mini- 
mum private  income  or  parental  allowance  for  its 
neophytes  is  barely  adequate,  especially  as  a 
first  salaried  appointment  as  "  third  secretary  " 
carries  with  it  but  an  annual  salary  of  £150. 
Vulgar  riches  by  themselves  are  not,  however, 

59 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

desired  in  the  sennce.  A  "  nomination "  is 
also  required,  and  it  is  laid  down  that  a  recom- 
mendation "  should  assume  the  form  of  a  private 
letter  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  containing  a  few 
personal  notes  on  the  candidate's  qualifications." 
In  advancing  the  claims  of  young  Noudelle- 
Gosling  it  would  doubtless  be  well  to  mention 
that  he  would  maintain  that  tradition  of  "  smooth 
and  soft  manners  "  of  which  Mackintosh  wrote, 
and  to  hint  guardedly  of  his  skill  at  cards  and 
dancing  as  likely  to  make  him  popular  in  those 
circles  where  it  is  hoped  he  will  move.  No 
amiable  accomplishment  is,  indeed,  to  be  despised. 
One  peer,  who  long  represented  Britain  in  Vienna 
and  Berlin,  gained  celebrity  as  Lord  Fiddle-de- 
dee,  and  wrote  operas  of  which  some  were  actually 
performed,  though  not  in  those  musical  capitals. 
Coleridge,  when  in  Rome,  was  suspected  of 
being  an  English  agent,  but  the  charge  was  with- 
drawn because  it  was  generally  agreed  that  the 
English  Government  sent  to  courts  abroad  none 
but  fools  of  gentlemanly  birth,  or,  occasionally, 
a  clever  libertine.  If  it  was  not  a  Noudelle- 
Gosling,  it  was  a  Lord  Scampcallous.  What 
the  foreign  critic  did  not  mention  was  that  most 
other  States  made  a  similar  practice,  and, 
consequently,     that     his     Britannic     Majesty's 

60 


THE        DIPLOMATISTS 

interests  did  not  suffer  greatly.  The  story  of 
diplomacy  in  later  years  does  not  show  any  notable 
reform.  Embassies  and  legations  are  still  filled 
by  men  and  women  of  various  nationalities  and 
of  one  class,  who  form  a  perambulating  club 
for  mutual  entertainment.  Mrs.  Eraser  has  put 
it  on  record  that  in  Vienna  there  were  lately 
four  hundred  families  known  as  hoffdhig,  or 
presentable  at  Court,  each  so  known  because 
it  could  show  sixteen  quarterings.  During  her 
husband's  official  residence  there,  they  comprised 
all  the  Austrian  society  she  met.  Never  once 
did  she  come  within  speaking  distance  of  any 
member  of  those  outer  circles  which  contained 
the  capital's  artistic,  financial,  and  professional 
elements. 

If  the  gentlemanly  fools  were  not  ready  made, 
the  etiquette  of  the  service  would  soon  create 
them  ;  yet  there  are  no  signs  that  the  diplomatists 
are  willing  to  break  their  bonds.  WTien  the 
Third  Republic  was  established  in  France,  they 
continued  to  throng  to  the  entertainments  of  the 
Faubourg  St.  Germain,  and  only  saw  as  much 
of  the  newly  democratised  official  life  of  Re- 
publican France  as  duty  required.  That  the 
bourgeois  atmosphere  of  the  Elysee  should  have 
been    preferred   to   the   Imperial   glitter  of   the 

61 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

Tuileries  was  not  to  be  expected,  but  that  the 
envoys  of  foreign  powers  lacked  the  intelligent 
curiosity  to  acquaint  themselves  with  the  new 
orientation  of  politics,  or  to  hear  a  second  side 
of  political  questions,  remains  surprising.  The 
Musee  de  Cluny  attracts  one,  yet  life  is  better 
studied  in  the  Jardin  d'Acclimatation.  A 
graver  charge,  however,  against  diplomatist  and 
diplomatess  is  that  at  Presidential  receptions, 
when  they  were  obliged  to  attend,  their  very 
manners  forsook  them.  Mme.  Waddington 
writes  in  her  reminiscences  that  their  criticisms 
of  the  "  dress,  deportment,  and  general  style 
of  the  republican  ladies "  could  sometimes  be 
overheard  and  always  felt. 

One  result  of  the  nomination  and  £400  a 
year  was  to  preserve  British  support  for  many 
years  for  the  gentlemanly  races  of  Turkey  and 
Austria,  as  well  as  for  Germany  which,  though 
its  people  might  seem  unpolished,  was  prolific 
in  producing  princelings.  It  is  difficult  to  fore- 
cast what  is  to  happen  in  the  new  Europe.  A 
fresh  type  of  diplomatist  must  be  evolved. 
Frau  Ebert  has  the  right  to  expect  as  much 
courtesy  as  was  ever  offered  to  a  Hohenzollern 
Empress.  We  do  not  want  envoys  who  will  be 
paying  their  respects  to  unemployed  monarchs 

62 


THE        DIPLOMATISTS 

or  dancing  attendance  on  retired  Grand  Duchesses. 
Even  the  language  test  will  have  to  be  enlarged. 
Positively,  it  may  be  necessary  to  insist  that 
our  future  representative  in  Petrograd  shall  speak 
Russian.  That  the  ordinary  ambassador  is 
without  the  right  kind  of  intelligence  for  address- 
ing the  Upsilon  Sigma  Alpha  Society  of  an 
American  university  has  long  been  realised, 
and  it  may  soon  be  as  hard  to  find  suitable 
representatives  for  the  European  capitals  as 
it  is  for  Washington.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
reform  begins  at  the  Foreign  Office  itself,  it  may 
no  more  be  necessary  to  send  abroad  so  many 
circulars  instructing  the  charge  d'affaires  to  have 
his  despatches  written  in  a  neater  hand,  as  the 
officials  at  home  are  elderly  and  very  tired. 

Possibly,  we,  like  the  Americans,  may  decide 
to  do  without  any  professional  service  of  diplo- 
macy. "  The  sure  way  to  make  a  foolish 
ambassador,'*  said  Coleridge,  "  is  to  bring  him 
up  to  it."  The  mysteries  of  the  chancelleries 
are  not  really  so  deep  as  Mr.  Le  Queux  would 
have  us  think.  Bismarck's  offer  to  instruct 
Bieberstein  in  his  duties  was  declined,  the  new 
man  saying  he  would  pick  up  the  details  as 
he  went,  and  that  foreign  affairs  had  always 
been  his  hobby.     Time,  too,  is  making  some  of 

63 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

the  details  less  intricate.  The  advice  of  Lord 
Lyons  to  a  French  minister's  wife,  never  to  invite 
an  ambassador  and  a  cardinal  to  the  same  dinner, 
as  neither  could  yield  precedence  to  the  other, 
was  given  in  the  ripeness  of  experience,  but 
already  seems  to  have  lost  some  of  its  original 
importance.  Cardinals  and  ambassadors  may 
be  as  punctilious  as  ever,  but  there  are  now  so 
many   other   peolpe   to   consider. 

Untrained  men  have  proved  their  worth  in 
the  general  scheme  of  diplomacy.  America 
has  been  well  represented  in  the  chief  European 
capitals.  At  Washington,  Lord  Bryce  was  a 
conspicuous  example  of  the  right  man  in  the 
right  place.  Others,  of  course,  have  failed. 
Lord  Birkenhead  brought  back  few  laurels 
from  across  the  Atlantic,  and  Colonel  Will 
Thorne  was  no  brilliant  success  in  Russia,  but 
it  would  be  unfair  to  say  that  these  gifted 
amateurs  surpassed  the  blunders  of  sundry 
professionals  of  the  old  school,  such  as  the  late 
Lord  Sackville.  The  stereotyped  training  and 
traditions  of  diplomacy  have  not  been  justified 
by  their  fruits.  A  liberal  minded,  powerful, 
and  unconventional  man  like  Morier,  a  man 
qui  a  route  Bismarck^  is  rare  in  diplomatic  annals  ; 
when  one  reads  them  one  is  reduced  to  agreeing 

64 


THE        DIPLOMATISTS 

with  the  old  Spaniard  who  wrote  that  a  diplo- 
matist could  think  his  work  well  done  if  he  had 
done  no  mischief. 

Express  trains  and  the  telegraph  have  robbed 
the  Noudelle-Goslings  of  the  importance  they 
may  once  have  possessed.  A  minister  to  Mexico 
could  now  hardly  break  off  relations  with  that 
republic  on  his  own  initiative  because  of  a  brawl 
at  a  dance.  Even  the  ambassadorial  dinner- 
table  has  lost  its  practical  importance,  since  it 
can  scarcely  be  made  large  enough  to  accommo- 
date a  whole  people.  Worse  still,  for  the  diplo- 
matist, most  of  his  secrets  have  become  public 
property.  It  is  useless  for  him  to  get  up  in  the 
morning,  like  one  of  his  old  Austrian  brothers, 
and  say  "  No  !  "  three  times  loudly  in  case  he 
should  have  uttered  indiscretions  overnight. 
He,  who  used  to  resent  the  Foreign  Office 
List  as  giving  information  to  his  compatriots 
about  pensions  and  salaries,  has  read  the  secret 
treaties  in  the  world's  press.  In  them  he  has 
seen,  too,  his  own  death  warrant.  His  downfall 
is,  in  a  way,  regrettable.  As  ambassador  or 
charge  d'affaires  he  was,  after  all,  the  man  on 
the  spot.  He  had  opportunities  for  knowing 
the  countries  to  which  he  was  sent,  and  of  sending 
good  counsel  to  those  at  home,  but  he  missed  his 

65  £ 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

chance.  In  taking  leave  of  him  I  will  quote  again 
from  Mme.  Waddington  :  "  There  is  no  profession 
so  banal  as  diplomacy."  The  diplomatist  has 
proved  her  right.  Nothing  is  left  for  him  but 
his  old  pastimes  of  inventing  new  cyphers,  which, 
in  a  year  or  two,  are  always  deciphered  by 
someone  else,  and  collecting  a  few  more  foreign 
decorations  before  he  dies. 


66 


THE    BENCH    OF    BISHOPS 

MR.  CRISPARKLE,"  said  the  Dean  of 
Cloisterham,  "  keeping  our  hearts  warm 
and  our  heads  cool,  we  clergy  need  do  nothing 
emphatically."  Had  Charles  Dickens  lived  to 
finish  Edwin  Drood,  he  would  have  done 
something  more  than  clear  up  the  mystery  of 
Datchery.  He  would,  probably,  have  shown 
how  Mr.  Dean,  walking  delicately,  behaving 
circumspectly,  advanced  to  the  final  earthly 
reward  of  lawn  sleeves,  which  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten  is  reserved  for  those  who  avoid  the  error 
of  emphasis.  Passing  time  has  done  nothing 
to  alter  the  value  of  the  advice  and  example 
he  gave  to  the  impetuous  Minor  Canon.  The 
history  of  the  Church  of  England  shows  that  we 
have  had  many  varieties  of  bishops,  but  in  the 
episcopate  of  to-day  one  would  look  in  vain  for 
many  of  them.  Dr.  Codex,  for  instance,  has 
disappeared.  To  have  annotated  Aristophanes 
or  to  have  Horace  by  heart  is  no  longer  a  qualifi- 
cation for  promotion.  Goodenough,  the  botanist, 
would  certainly  not  be  chosen  to  fill  a  see  were 
he  alive  in  our  century,  for  it  is  widely  recognized 

67 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

that  bishops  have  not  the  time  to  be  studious. 
No  more  can  we  meet  a  Brownlow  North  appointed 
to  Lichfield  at  thirty  by  his  brother,  the  Prime 
Minister,  who  did  not  expect  to  be  in  office  when 
the  j'^oung  man  grew  older.  The  political  cleric, 
beloved  of  the  early  Georgian  Whigs,  who  could 
put  his  pen  at  the  services  of  a  Townshend 
or  a  Walpole,  seems  almost  equally  archaic. 
The  gaitered  contingent  held  coldly  aloof  when 
a  while  ago  Lord  Halsbury  was  seeking  volunteers 
to  line  the  last  ditch.  Apart,  indeed,  from  the 
two  or  three  rare  but  prominent  radicals  of  the 
type  of  Dr.  Perceval,  the  Anglican  bishops 
have  prided  themselves  for  many  years  on  being 
above  the  party  hurly-burly. 

Even  piety  is  by  itself  an  insufficient  recom- 
mendation when  bishoprics  fall  vacant.  Tact 
and  knowledge  of  the  world  are,  it  is  said,  equally 
weighty  considerations,  and  were  the  saintly 
Ken  with  us  now  he  would  surely  be  allowed  to 
end  his  days  in  a  country  vicarage.  Several 
types  have  passed  or  been  modified  out  of 
recognition,  but  one  remains  unchanged.  The 
Dean  of  Cloisterham  has  become  a  bishop ; 
almost  he  has  become  the  whole  bench  of  bishops. 
He  is  safe  and  sound ;  will  never  provoke  a 
crisis ;    will  match  the  late  Duke  of  Devonshire 

68 


THE     BENCH     OF     BISHOPS 

in  acting  as  a  drag  on  the  wheel ;  will  by  his 
very  attitude  of  benign  patience  shame  the  raw, 
rash  zealots  ;  can  be  counted  on  to  leave  the 
Church  of  England  as  by  law  established  in 
much  the  same  outward  shape  as  it  was  on  the 
day  when  he  was  ordained  deacon. 

When  Archbishop  Manners  Sutton  bade 
farewell  to  Heber  on  the  latter's  departure 
for  Calcutta  he  told  him  to  preach  the  gospel 
and  to  put  down  enthusiasm.  How  the  two 
charges  can  be  accomplished  together  has  caused 
surprise  to  some,  yet  the  miracle  has  been 
constantly  performed.  Desire  for  this  kind  of 
ministration  may  explain  what  Sydney  Smith 
meant  when  he  said  that  what  bishops  liked 
best  in  their  clergy  was  "  a  dropping  down 
deadness  of  manner."  Continued  cold  douches 
have  had  their  natural  results.  Wesley  was 
discouraged,  and  the  Methodists  seceded.  New- 
man and  Manning  were  allowed  to  go.  The 
dignitaries  of  the  Church  in  their  dread  of 
disturbance  of  the  status  quo  could  only  see 
arson  in  so  much  spiritual  fire.  In  times  of 
religious  stress  they  had  little  to  offer  but  "  com- 
mon sense  eked  out  with  law,"  and  the  two 
together  have  never  had  the  value  of  a  moment's 
vision.     They  are  still  as  cautious  as  ever.     With- 

60 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

in  the  last  few  months  the  Bishop  of  Coventry 
has  inhibited  a  Warwickshire  vicar  from  preaching 
in  a  Congregational  chapel,  and  the  Bishop 
of  Truro  has  had  an  embroilment  with  a  parish 
priest  exceeding  the  regulation  allowance  of 
ritualism.  In  neither  case  does  it  seem  as 
though  any  great  principle  is  involved.  It  is 
simply  to  be  noted  that  two  of  the  clergy  have 
stepped  left  and  right  from  the  via  media  which 
to  episcopal  eyes  is  the  via  sacra. 

The  middle  way,  it  may  be  said,  is  broad 
enough  for  all  reasonable  beings,  but,  since 
its  boundaries  are  unmarked,  its  breadth 
avails  little.  The  individual  parson,  whose 
steps  meander  from  the  beaten  track,  may 
be  occasionally  censured,  but  our  bishops  are 
chary  of  moving  from  the  particular  to  the 
general.  Kikuyu  was  one  of  several  incidents 
in  modern  Church  history  which  should  have  led 
to  a  clear  and  definite  pronouncement.  On 
its  morrow  one  should  have  known  whether 
confirmation  was,  or  was  not,  a  necessary  pre- 
liminary to  Anglican  communion.  Instead, 
there  was  a  tendency  to  hush  up  the  business 
as  painful.  With  downdrooping  eyes  it  was 
remarked  that  "  holy  strife  of  disputatious 
men  *'    had   a   bad   effect   on   the   crowd.     The 

70 


THE     BENCH     OF     BISH0P3 

scene  of  the  incident  was  remote.  These  Bishops 
of  Rum-ti-Foo  were  a  nuisance,  and  one  can 
mark  in  the  writings  of  the  present  Bishop  of 
Hereford,  thorough  Protestant  as  he  is,  how  a 
member  of  what  may  be  called  the  pukka 
episcopacy  can  resent  the  incursions  of  missionary 
brethren.  The  Kikuyu  incident,  as  presented 
in  the  serio-comic  press,  raised  a  laugh  because 
the  name  of  the  place  appealed  to  some  sense 
of  the  ridiculous.  It  was  forgotten  for  a  labour 
dispute  which,  to  quote  the  impartial  authority 
of  The  Annual  Register,  was  "  of  more  pressing 
interest." 

Bishops,  it  would  seem,  will  from  time  to 
time  allow  the  breath  of  their  disapproval  to 
stir  diocesan  tea-cups  and  even  agitate  the 
papers  with  a  wholly  clerical  circle  of  readers, 
but  they  dread  to  set  the  Thames  on  fire.  The 
elder  among  them  can,  perhaps,  recall  the 
hubbub  of  the  Machonochie  case  and  the  dis- 
turbance of  Essays  and  Reviews.  They  fear 
a  repetition  of  such  unpleasantnesses,  but  they 
deceive  themselves  most  sadly.  Almost  any 
thing  should  be  welcomed  which  might  show 
public  concern  with  the  affairs  of  the  Church 
of  England,  even  if  it  took  the  form  of  badger- 
ing an  evangelical  preacher  at  the  cross-roads  or 

71 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

rolling  a  high-church  curate  with  his  vestments 
in  the  gutter.  However,  such  things  are  not 
to  be. 

From  publicity  of  a  sort,  occupants  of  the 
episcopal  bench  do  not  shrink.  At  the  present 
time  people  appear  to  be  considerably  interested 
in  spiritual  matters,  whilst  the  bishops  have  the 
air  of  caring  for  almost  anything  else  from 
boxing  to  the  birth-rate.  One  of  their  number 
is  almost  sure  to  rise  to  the  bait  if  Lord  North- 
cliffe  or  one  of  his  editors  wants  an  opinion 
expressed  on  the  morality  or  otherwise  of  the 
fox-trot,  or  a  voice  authoritatively  raised  about 
Lady  Godiva's  dress  in  a  pageant.  In  any 
such  stunt  a  bishop  can  be  counted  on  to  make 
a  useful  move,  but,  in  the  unlikely  event  of  a 
reporter  being  one  day  sent  to  an  episcopal 
palace  for  a  pronouncement  on  a  point  of  doctrine 
or  an  application  of  canon  law  I  think  he  would 
be  sent  empty  away.  The  ethical  significance 
of  the  barmaid  is  a  subject  fit  for  the  highest 
ecclesiastical  treatment,  but  such  a  question  as 
"  Do  the  dead  return  ?  "  is  left  for  discussion 
to  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle  and  Mr.  Wells. 

In  the  last  century  Anglican  churchmen  saw 
dangers  coming  from  Nonconformist  growth, 
Roman   inroads,    or   advancing   science.     These 

72 


THE     BENCH     OF     BISHOPS 

alarms  are  forgotten,  and  the  trouble  is  recognized 
as  internal.  Like  the  heroine  of  a  mid- Victorian 
novel,  the  Church  is  said  to  be  going  into  a  decline. 
In  hope  of  arresting  the  malady,  a  little  fresh 
air  has  been  recommended  and  the  "  Enabling 
Act  "  has  received  the  Royal  assent.  It  is  not  a 
very  brave  measure,  but,  with  a  trifle  of  optimism, 
one  may  see  in  it  a  promise  of  better  things 
to  come,  especially  if  one  takes  it  in  conjunction 
with  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough's  recent  state- 
ment that  the  status  quo  is  too  heavy  a  price 
to  pay  for  establishment. 

When  archiepiscopal  and  episcopal  minds  are 
found  to  be  busy  even  with  the  mildest  reforms, 
there  is  room  for  hope  that  the  younger  clergy, 
as  well  as  those  veterans  who  have  contrived  to 
keep  their  zeal  undamped,  will  be  up  and  doing. 
Lord  Haldane,  somewhat  curiously  for  a  man 
of  his  political  tradition,  has  warned  them  against 
taking  a  step  towards  disestablishment,  but  the 
dead  weight  of  Erastian  opposition  may  yet 
induce  them  to  take  two.  Mr.  St.  Loe  Strachey, 
a  more  obvious  adversary  to  reform,  himself 
owned  that  rejection  of  the  "  Enabling  Act " 
would  be  followed  by  a  secession,  but,  like  the 
fabled  kitchen  maid,  he  apologetically  added 
that  it  would  only  be  a  little  one.     Little  or 

73 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

big,  this  is  no  time  for  churchmen  to  be  talking 
of  withdrawals.  If  past  example  goes  for  any- 
thing, it  shows  that  a  seceder  is  usually  the  man 
who  cannot  be  spared. 

Courage  is,  and  long  has  been,  the  thing 
needed  among  the  higher  clergy.  Of  several 
other  qualities  there  is  enough  and  to  spare. 
The  Primate,  for  instance,  is  a  statesman  who 
would  adorn  any  Cabinet,  and,  did  he  not  occupy 
the  chair  of  St.  Augustine,  he  would  be  well 
placed  at  the  Foreign  Office.  As  ambassador  from 
one  Church  to  another,  he  has  visited  Scotland 
and  been  welcomed  as  persona  gratissima.  The 
most  accomplished  diplomatist,  however,  is 
bound  in  the  end  to  fail  if  he  has  not  the  nation 
behind  him,  and  it  is  unfortunately  true  that  the 
Anglican  Church  is  no  longer  an  important  factor 
in  the  life  of  the  people.  Respect  for  it  has 
become  a  matter  of  courtesy  rather  than  of  con- 
viction, whilst  interest  in  it  is  a  minus  quantity. 
Its  most  devoted  members  confess  that  it  is 
crumbling,  and  deplore  its  present  condition 
the  most  loudly,  though  they  as  often  declare 
that  by  this  means  or  that  it  is  being  set  right. 
Outsiders  feel  that  they  can  have  too  much 
of  a  house  that  is  always  being  put  in  order. 
The  perpetual  presence  of  plumber  and  decorator 

74 


THE     BENCH     OF     BISHOPS 

offers  poor  inducment  to  the  wanderer  in  search 
of  a  permanent  home. 

If  anything  is  to  be  saved,  a  drastic  policy  must 
be  adopted.  What  is  to  be  done  must  be  done 
quickly.  In  the  country  at  large  there  is  no 
enmity  to  the  Church,  and  opposition  to  a 
really  boldly  conceived  plan,  designed  to  secure 
the  ideal  of  a  free  Church  in  a  free  State,  would 
be  negligible,  but  the  Bench  of  Bishops  with  its 
divided  counsels  and  its  makeshifts  will  receive 
no  wide  support.  The  "  Enabling  Act,"  despite 
the  hopes  founded  on  it,  will  fail  of  its  purpose 
because  it  is  too  much  like  an  effort  to  get  the 
best  out  of  two  worlds.  In  some  particulars  it 
is  not  straightforward,  and,  though  it  hints 
penitence  for  an  Erastian  past,  it  is  a  riddling 
confession  which  can  only  expect  a  riddling 
shrift.  "The  Church  of  England,"  said  John 
Inglesant,  "  is  a  compromise,"  and  compromises 
the  English  race  is  said  to  love.  It  would  be 
nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  it  is  very  patient  in 
tolerating  them. 


75 


THE    PRIMROSE    LEAGUE 

TORY  DEMOCRACY  is  one  of  those  poli- 
tical posibilities  to  which  for  several 
generations  men  have  looked  with  recur- 
ring hope.  Its  programme  is  always  attrac- 
tive. It  promises  reform  without  faddism ; 
conservation  without  anachronism ;  liberality 
to  everybody  without  extortion  from  anybody ; 
evolution  without  tears.  It  attracts  almost 
all  the  clever  young  men  in  whom  socialism 
has  not  been  born  with  original  sin.  In  every 
new  Parliament  a  group  of  members,  said  to 
be  inspired  by  its  ideals,  are  discovered  to  be 
the  only  persons  in  the  House  of  Commons 
who  really  voice  the  aspirations  of  the  country. 
Not  until  one  begins  to  examine  its  practical 
manifestations  does  one  begin  to  doubt. 

As  an  example  of  Tory  Democracy  in  working 
order,  the  Primrose  League  at  once  and  inevitably 
comes  to  mind.  Founded  in  1883,  the  avowed 
object  of  the  League  is  to  spread  Conservative 
principles  among  the  working  classes  of  Great 
Britain.  Given  an  unprejudiced  mind,  no  one 
can  complain  of  this  piece  of  missionary  enterprise, 

76 


THE      PRIMROSE      LEAGUE 

but  one  or  two  little  matters  remain  to  be 
investigated.  One  should,  for  example,  pay 
some  heed  to  the  methods  employed ;  to  the 
characters  and  records  of  sundry  personages 
who  influenced  the  shaping  of  the  original 
scheme ;  and,  finally,  to  those  who  in  later 
days  have  carried  on  the  good  work. 

With  the  foundation  of  this  Primrose  League 
three  names  are  particularly  connected,  and  of 
these  that  of  the  Earl  of  Beaconsfield  is  the 
first  in  fame.  Everybody  knows  the  story  of 
the  primrose  having  been  his  favourite  flower, 
but  few,  perhaps,  realise  how  providential  was 
his  taste.  Whatever  it  may  have  been  to  Peter 
Bell  and  the  poet,  the  little  yellow  blossom  is 
to  all  Leaguers  an  esoteric  symbol  of  Empire. 
Nothing  could  be  more  simple  or  more  charming ; 
for  its  five  petals,  not  to  mention  its  five  stamens, 
its  five-toothed  calyx,  and  its  five-valved  capsule, 
represent  in  the  Imperialist's  language  of  flowers 
the  five  great  divisions  of  the  British  heritage 
in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  America,  and  Oceania. 
To  how  many  clod-stirring  discourses  has  this 
piece  of  symbolism  given  the  text ! 

But  perhaps  there  were  some  who  in  the  League's 
early  days  overrated  the  posthumous  influence 
of  Disraeli  in  its  activities.     Any  study  of  that 

77 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

statesman's  life  reveals  his  enormous  belief  in 
the  political  influence  of  secret  societies  ;  and, 
at  least  in  the  "  Young  England  "  period,  his 
vivid  imagination  ran  riot  over  hidden  hands, 
Jesuits,  Carbonari,  and  Rosicrucian  survivals. 
Whilst  the  Primrose  League  was  yet  in  its 
infancy,  a  Roman  Catholic  bishop  solemnly 
warned  his  flock  against  joining  the  new  and 
dangerous  association,  and  it  took  a  ducal  patron 
to  convince  the  worthy  prelate  that  he  was 
not  faced  by  an  English  edition  of  the  Mafia 
or  of  the  Fenian  Brotherhood.  Spread  of 
Conservative  principles  amongst  the  working 
classes  was  not  to  be  accompanied  by  armed 
risings  of  the  peasantry  in  defence  of  manorial 
rights,  nor  even  by  holding  up  to  ransom  the 
radical  grocer.  The  young  Disraeli  might 
have  played  gleefully  with  such  romantic  ideas, 
but  the  League  itself  was  to  be  nourished  by 
men  of  another  stamp. 

Credit  for  the  original  plan  seems  to  have  been 
due  to  the  late  Lord  Glenesk,  for  in  the  first  place 
it  was  mooted  in  the  Morning  Post.  What 
that  newspaper  had  to  do  with  democracy  it 
would  be  hard  to  say,  but  of  its  changeless 
Toryism  there  is  no  doubt.  Perhaps  its  pro- 
prietor saw  in  the  Orange  Lodges  of  Ulster  a 

78 


THE      PRIMROSE     LEAGUE 

working  model  on  which  the  proposed  habitations 
could  be  formed,  and  perhaps  he  reflected  com- 
fortably that  the  strong,  raw  spirit  called  Boyne 
Water  was  little  to  the  taste  of  English  people. 
However  well  the  British  Unionist  is  pleased 
with  his  friends  across  the  water,  he  is  yet 
better  pleased  that  the  water  is  between  them. 
Anyhow,  tea  and  small  beer  have  always 
been  the  accepted  beverages  of  the  Primrose 
fete. 

For  the  League  in  its  completed  shape  one  has 
most  to  thank  Sir  Henry  Drummond  Wolff, 
a  man  of  mischievous  humour  and  a  political 
diplomatist  who  made  no  secret  of  his  cjniicism. 
Under  his  care  and  with  the  aid  of  a  number  of 
ladies,  mostly  of  title,  the  Glenesk  idea  came  to 
maturity.  Honorific  distinctions  were  devised 
with  prodigality,  and  brought  within  the  reach 
of  the  most  modest  purses,  though  not  with  the 
foolish  lack  of  discrimination  which  tends  to  make 
Lord  Chancellors  as  cheap  as  sprats.  A  duly 
ordered  hierarchy  was  planned.  The  Associates 
were  ranged,  humbly  yet  honorably,  beneath 
a  Jacob's  ladder,  at  the  top  of  which  gleamed 
the  Grand  Master  himself.  On  the  rungs  were 
Knights  and  Dames  of  various  degrees.  Won- 
derful     possibilities      existed.      Who,     [looking 

79 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

upwards,  could  realize  unmoved  that  one  day 
he  might  become  a  Kiiight  Harbinger  ? 

Badges,  brooches,  and  other  articles  of  inex- 
pensive jewelry  were  brought  within  the  reach 
of  members,  and  served  for  something  besides 
personal  adornment.  They  were  talismans  open- 
ing gates  to  their  privileged  wearers  on  suitable 
occasions.  At  the  annual  picnic  in  my  lord's 
park,  for  instance,  where  the  speeches  were 
followed  by  the  swings  and  roundabouts,  peer 
and  farm  tenants  met  on  terms  of  practical 
equality,  and  even  the  labourer  and  his  wife 
were  permitted  to  walk  round  the  walled  gardens 
and  see  the  peaches  with  their  own  eyes.  Lily 
fingers  found  their  way  to  horny  palms,  and  an 
era  of  general  good-fellowship  was  established 
even  before  my  lady,  somewhat  to  the  relief 
of  all  concerned,  had  made  way  for  the 
fireworks  and  ale. 

All  was  excellently  conceived ;  a  place  for 
everybody  and  everybody  in  his  or  her  place, 
although  the  gradations,  since  there  were  so 
many  of  them,  were  scarcely  felt.  Be  sure  the 
moralist  was  present  to  dwell  on  the  loss  it  would 
be  to  all  if  the  levelling  tendencies  of  the  age 
were  to  prevent  repetition  of  such  happy  days. 
Only  a  gardener  or  two  grumbled  about  the  nut- 

80 


THE      PRIMROSE      LEAGUE 

shells  and  orange-peel  scattered  by  the  revellers 
at  an  unguarded  end  of  the  lawn.  And  on  the 
next  Sunday  the  choir  put  new  gusto  into 
the  singing  of  the  hymn  about  the  rich  man  in 
his  castle  and  the  poor  man  at  his  gate.  In 
the  towns,  perhaps,  the  energies  of  the  League 
bore  less  picturesque  results,  but  in  the  'eighties 
it  was  the  counties  that  were  the  ticklish  question, 
Hodge  was  soon  to  have  the  vote,  and  even  the 
farmers  were  suspected  of  a  sneaking  gratitude 
to  the  Liberal  Government  for  its  Hares  and 
Rabbits  Act. 

Time  has  brought  few  changes  in  the  methods 
of  the  Primrose  League  or  in  its  objects.  Its 
members  are  still  sworn  to  maintain  with  dis- 
cretion and  fidelity  the  estates  of  the  realm,  the 
British  Empire,  and  religion.  As  to  what 
religion  they  are  to  maintain  there  is  discreet 
silence,  but  one  would  suspect  it  is  the  variety 
recommended  by  Disraeli — "  Church  and  State, 
my  boy,  like  strawberries  and  cream,  always 
best  together."  If  one  looks  to  see  at  the  head 
of  this  organization  for  spreading  Conservative 
opinion  among  the  working  classes  any  states- 
man of  even  mildly  democratic  tendency,  one 
will  be  disappointed.  Perhaps,  however,  to  the 
mere   Associate   or   average   Knight   Harbinger, 

81  F 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

there  is  satisfaction  in  belonging  to  a  body 
of  which  Earl  Curzon  of  Kedleston  is  the  Grand 
Master  and  head. 

Lord  Curzon,  too,  one  feels,  approves  mightily 
of  the  ordered  hierarchy  beneath  him.  Not 
so  long  ago  the  writer  of  this  book  was  in  the  habit 
of  dining  at  a  club  in  France  where  that  noble- 
man's butler  acted  as  head  waiter,  and  one  of 
the  latter's  duties  was  to  enforce  a  rule  that 
there  should  be  no  smoking  before  a  quarter 
to  nine.  Very  well  and  impartially  he  performed 
his  task,  until  one  night  an  officer  of  unusually 
high  rank  lighted  a  large  cigar  on  the  stroke 
of  half-past  eight.  Half  the  diners  waited 
breathless.  Would  respect  for  rank  or  rule 
predominate  ?  Training  told.  Walking  solemnly 
to  the  end  of  the  room,  the  imperturbable 
functionary  mounted  a  chair  and  advanced  the 
hands  of  the  clock  by  fifteen  minutes.  Rank 
and  rule  had  both  been  respected,  and  who 
could  have  dreamed  that  it  could  have  been 
otherwise  with  one  who  had  served  the  Grand 
Master  of  the  Primrose  League  ? 

Long  ago,  one  of  the  Victorian  Tories  cried 
that  "  we  must  educate  our  masters."  The 
process  of  political  education  has  now  been  many 
years  in  hand,  though  it  has  not  run  precisely 

82 


THE      PRIMROSE     LEAGUE 

on  the  lines  which  the  originally  designed  "  we  " 
would  have  favoured.  The  populace  has  out- 
grown Primrose  League  methods.  Tit  illation  of 
the  weaker  side  of  human  nature,  the  gratification 
of  small  vanities,  occasional  condescensions 
from  on  high,  are  all  very  well  for  a  time,  but 
as  permanent  substitutes  for  political  policy 
they  will  not  do.  Moreover,  the  Order  of  the 
British  Empire  has  weakened  the  Primrose 
League's  first  attraction.  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
Government  has  paid  the  final  tribute  of  sincerest 
flattery  to  the  cunning  scheme  of  Sir  Henry 
Drummond  Wolff,  and  in  the  process  has  ham- 
mered the  last  nail  into  its  coffin. 


THE     TEMPORARY     CIVIL     SERVANT 

HISTORIANS  who  in  the  future  write  of 
our  own  times,  will  wish  to  explain 
to  their  readers  how  retrenchment  followed  on 
the  heels  of  peace.  Foreseeing  that  they  may 
find  themselves  in  difficulties,  I  want  to  call 
their  attention  to  a  passage  in  The  Pickwick 
Papers,  which  may  serve  them  for  an  allegorical 
illustration.  In  that  admirable  work  one  may 
read  how,  in  a  moment  of  general  excitement, 
Mr.  Winkle  once  made  a  terrific  onslaught  on 
a  small  boy  who  happened  to  stand  next  him. 
Thereupon  Mr.  Snodgrass,  in  truly  Christian 
spirit,  and  in  order  that  he  might  take  no  one 
unawares,  announced  in  a  very  loud  tone  that 
he  was  going  to  begin,  and  proceeded  to  take 
off  his  coat  with  the  utmost  deliberation.  Be- 
tween this  famous  incident  and  the  opening 
moves  in  the  economy  campaign,  proclained 
at  Deauville  and  practised  in  Whitehall  in  the 
year  1919,  the  thirtieth-century  Gibbon  may 
find  a  fairly  close  parallel.  When  he  turns  to 
facts,  he  will  conceivably  relate  how,  at  a  time 

84 


THE  TEMPORARY  CIVIL  SERVANT 

when  the  country's  daily  income  stood  at  about 
half  its  daily  expenditure,  the  Civil  Service  was 
made  to  cost  us  less  by  the  dismissal  from  the 
War  Office  of  Cissie  Smith,  aged  thirteen  and 
a  half. 

Cissie,  thus  sacrificed,  obviously  matches  Mr. 
Winkle's  victim.  She  will  be  regarded  as  a 
pathetic,  almost  noble,  figure.  From  motives 
of  patriotism,  she  was  at  an  early  age  removed 
from  school,  and  set  to  do  work  of  national 
importance  by  piloting  strangers  through  the 
corridors  of  a  Government  department.  As  she 
once  contrived  to  mislay  me  for  the  best  part 
of  a  morning,  thus  saving  five  minutes  of  the 
valuable  time  of  a  staff  captain  whom  I  desired 
to  interview,  and  enabling  him  to  escape  to  his 
luncheon,  I  can  say  from  personal  experience 
that  she  was  an  adept  at  her  task.  Many  could 
confirm  my  evidence  on  her  behalf,  yet  now,  in 
requital  of  her  services,  she  has  been  turned 
adrift  on  a  world  where  there  is  no  particular 
demand  for  her  highly  specialized  skill.  The 
need  to  save  money  being  urgent,  and  the  time 
of  staff  officers  being  less  valuable  than  it  was, 
one  must  not,  however,  complain  of  her  treat- 
ment. Use  for  her  no  longer  exists.  Yet  that 
her  departure  should  have  been  made  an  occasion 

85 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

for  loud  rejoicing  seems  to  show  some  lack  of 
proper  and  generous  feeling.  Are  we  not, 
indeed,  inclined  to  be  somewhat  ungrateful 
to  one  and  all  of  our  temporary  Civil 
Servants  ? 

Into  no  profession  or  calling  do  persons  seem 
to  fit  themselves  more  quickly  or  easily  than 
into  the  Civil  Service.  Between  professional 
and  temporary  soldiers  there  was  always  an 
unbridged  gulf.  The  two  classes  did  not  in 
the  least  wish  to  be  confused,  and  each  held 
as  firmly  as  possible  to  certain  original  attributes. 
In  Whitehall,  on  the  other  hand,  the  new-comer 
made  himself  at  home.  There  was  something 
irresistibly  sedative  in  the  atmosphere.  If  you 
have  ever  consulted  one  of  those  booklets  which 
seek  to  guide  youth  in  choice  of  an  occupation, 
you  must  have  noted  that  the  Civil  Service  is 
never  called  exhilarating  or  interesting  or 
ennobling  or  even  lucrative.  Invariably  it  is 
recommended  for  its  safety.  In  days  before 
the  war  its  youngest  entrant  was  an  aspirant 
for  a  pension,  whilst  even  those  who  held  its 
most  coveted  posts  could  not  be  described  as 
of  immodest  means.  From  Whitehall  windows 
its  members  must  have  watched  a  worrying 
world  with  some  of  that  snug  wonder  which 

86 


THE  TEMPORARY  CIVIL  SERVANT 

one   imagines   the   Dormouse   to   have   felt  for 
the  Mad  Hatter. 

One  has  heard  that  the  air  of  Rome  brings 
melancholy  and  lassitude  to  pilgrims  from  other 
climes.  In  the  presence  of  the  eternal,  one 
begins  to  suspect  that  it  is  futile  to  hurry,  and 
the  permanent  Civil  Servant  never  doubted 
that  his  department  would  outlast  most  human 
institutions.  To  breathe  the  same  air  with  him 
was  to  absorb  bromide.  During  the  war,  the 
Press  decided  that  the  public  was  tired  of  King 
Log  and  desired  the  rule  of  King  Stork.  Notori- 
ous hustlers  were  introduced  everywhere,  and, 
of  course,  they  hustled  a  great  deal.  Of  the 
many  public  works  they  inaugurated,  the  future 
historian  will  doubtless  remark  that  they  may 
be  seen  unto  this  day,  and  concerning  their 
purpose  he  will  dispute  as  we  have  disputed 
about  Stonehenge.  Bureaucratic  remains  at 
Loch  Doon  will  one  day  form  an  interesting 
subject  for  study,  but  it  is  hard  for  us  to  take 
so  detached  a  view  of  these  monuments  more 
enduring — and  more  costly — than  brass.  Charit- 
ably, one  must  assume  that  at  an  early  stage 
of  their  construction  the  Whitehall  atmosphere 
overcame  the  hustler  and  he  fell  asleep.  It 
must  have  seemed  a  perfectly  safe  thing  to  do. 

87 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

According  to  all  the  traditions  of  the  service, 
Whitehall  would  still  be  there  when  he  awoke 
— and  he  would  be  there  too. 

Perhaps  the  main  difference  which  survived 
between  the  old  type  of  Civil  Servant  and  the 
"  live  "  man  who  was  summoned  to  aid  or  to 
supplant  him  was  that  the  former  slept  soundly, 
whilst  the  latter  appeared  to  be  a  somnambulist. 
In  no  other  way  can  one  account  for  some  of 
his  performances.  Of  the  two  varieties  the  first 
is  preferable,  but  the  public  should  remember 
that  not  long  ago  the  second  was  in  great 
demand.  In  saying  farewell  to  temporary  Civil 
Servants  of  all  grades,  a  note  of  kindliness 
might  have  been  introduced  by  recalling  how 
eagerly  their  services  were  once  sought.  Not 
very  long  ago  it  was  popularly  held  to  be  almost 
indecent  for  men,  women,  or  children  to  remain 
in  their  normal  states  of  life.  If  an  old  man 
placed  himself  at  the  State's  disposal  and  a 
post  was  not  immediately  found  for  him, 
national  indignation  vented  itself  in  the  next 
morning's  papers.  Responding  to  appeals  for 
"  every  fit  woman,"  young  misses  arrived  from 
town  and  country  to  form  a  queue  from  the 
Houses  of  Parliament  to  Trafalgar  Square. 
They  were  greeted  as  heroines.     In  those  days 

88 


THE  TEMPORARY  CIVIL  SERVANT 

the  two  unforgivable  sins  were  to  stay  at  home 
and  to  mind  one's  own  business.  It  did  not 
much  matter  what  one  did  as  long  as  it  was 
somebody  else's  job,  and,  if  possible,  a  job 
under  Government. 

Not  all  our  volunteers,  civil  or  military, 
were  necessarily  in  love  with  the  work  they 
undertook.  Some  may  have  felt  that  they  were 
doing  an  unpleasant  duty,  others  have  been 
influenced  by  social  pressure  or  simple  restless- 
ness. Even  the  flappers  did  not  always  have 
the  "  time  of  their  lives  "  as  that  phrase  was 
once  understood,  and  I  know  one  or  two  of 
them  who  were  glad  to  go  home  when  the  war 
ended.  All,  however,  had  not  homes  which 
could  conveniently  receive  them,  and  on  those 
"  swollen  staffs "  there  may,  too,  have  been 
some  men  who  did  not  feel  the  first  year  of 
peace  a  particularly  good  one  in  which  to  seek 
fresh  employment.  Their  private  concerns  were 
no  affair  of  ours,  but  we  might  at  least  have 
been  polite  to  them.  They  entered  the  Civil 
Service  in  the  public  interest,  and  in  the  same 
interest  they  had  to  leave  it ;  but  it  was  bad 
manners  and  very  foolish  to  represent  them  as 
so  many  vultures  gorging  themselves  on  the 
body  of  Sir  John  Bradbury.     The  cry  of  the 

89 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

country  in  danger  from  a  foreign  enemy  made 
many  men  and  woman  act  altruistically.  The 
cry  of  the  country  in  danger  of  financial  collapse 
merely  makes  the  majority  of  human  beings 
look  to  their  own  immediate  security.  In  an 
ideal  world  where  everybody  had  a  proper 
education  in  civics,  it  would  not  be  so.  Holders 
of  war  loan  would  be  petitioning  to  have  their 
interest  reduced ;  demobilized  soldiers  would 
refuse  their  gratuities ;  Mr.  Churchill  would 
have  resigned  his  last  car  and  taken  a  season 
ticket  on  the  Underground.  In  that  Utopia, 
temporary  Civil  Servants  would  abscond  unpaid 
at  the  Treasury's  first  hint  of  trouble. 

As  things  are,  it  is  evident  that  His  Majesty's 
Ministers  must  follow  the  example  of  Mr. 
Snodgrass  and  even  go  beyond  it.  Officially, 
they  have  been  told  to  make  drastic  reductions 
in  their  staffs  ;  unofficially,  one  or  two  of  them 
have  been  warned  that  it  would  not  be  amiss 
if  they  were  to  retire  into  private  life,  their 
whole  departments  disappearing  with  them.  It 
was  even  suggested  that  the  Air  Ministry  might 
well  leave  the  earth  for  its  native  element, 
and  it  was  darkly  asked  whom  and  what  the 
Ministry  of  Supplies  was  supplying.  One  must 
not  look  for  too  much  in  this  direction.     What- 

90 


THE  TEMPORARY  CIVIL  SERVANT 

ever  paring  may  be  done  will  be  done  as  far 
from  the  head  as  possible.    The  little  girls  with 
pig-tails   were   first   doomed,    and   the   slightly 
older  young  ladies,   now  stigmatized  for  their 
tea-swilling   and   cream-bun   devouring   propen- 
sities, are  following.     In  due  course  a  number 
of   masculine    understrappers    of   various    ages 
will  be  removed.     Only  firmness  is  required  to 
dislodge  these  so-called  limpets.     But  higher  up 
the  rocks,  in  less  accessible  places,  with  higher 
functions,  stronger  connections,  and  considerably 
higher  salaries,   are  the  Tite  Barnacles.     Even 
those  of  them  who  have  been  there  but  a  few 
years  have  acquired  the  old  instinct  of  contempt 
for  the  public.     Like  their  famous  ancestor,  they 
mention  that  obscure  body  with  reluctance,  and 
think  of  it  as  their  natural  enemy.     They  have, 
of  course,  read  the  Premier's  letter  on  reduction 
of  personnel.     Being  what  they  are,  they  have 
assuredly  noted  it,  and  one  may  be  reasonably 
confident    that    they    have    had    it    filed.      To 
imagine  that  any  one  of  the  Barnacles  has  taken 
it  as  a  notice  to  quit  with  a  personal  application, 
is   totally   to   misunderstand   the   mentality   of 
those    who    have    had    a   few   years'    intensive 
training  in  the  great  art  of  how  not  to  do  it. 
Mr.    Lloyd    George    has    already    received    the 

9X 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

Order  of  Merit  from  the  King.  Another  dis- 
tinction may  yet  be  added  to  him.  It  used  to 
be  said  that  the  great  British  Order  of  Merit 
was  the  Legion  of  the  Rebuffed  of  the  Circum- 
locution Office. 


92 


THE    IMPERIALIST 

OLD  JINGO  is  dead.  The  war  killed 
him.  Even  in  August  1914  you  could 
see  there  was  something  wrong  with  him,  though 
he  himself  did  not  realize  what  was  the  matter. 
Really,  though  subconsciously,  he  was  wishing 
we  had  not  gone  to  war  with  Germany,  for 
then  he  could  have  put  all  his  energies  into 
abusing  a  Radical  Government  which  had  shame- 
fully betrayed  national  honour,  as  he  had  always 
declared  that  it  would.  The  fact  that  Sir 
Edward  Grey  and  all  the  people  at  whom  he 
had  scoffed  were  doing  what  he  had  to  acknow- 
ledge as  the  right  thing,  upset  him.  Besides, 
he  had  always  rather  admired  the  German 
Empire  with  its  oratorical  Kaiser,  its  military 
discipline,  and  its  penetrative  and  expansive 
ways.  He  had  had  a  taste  for  Blucher  boots, 
and  had  always  prided  himself  on  being  a 
Teuton,  and  as  such  born  in  superiority  to  the 
decadent  Latin  and  erratic  Celt.  Of  course  he 
was  upset.  Worse  days  came  for  him  when 
people  began  to  say  that  his  Dardanelles  policy 
of  1878  had  been  a  mistake.     He  had  not  much 

98 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

spirit  left  in  him,  but  he  continued  for  a  while 
to  jeer  at  President  Wilson's  neutrality.  When 
the  news  of  American  intervention  arrived,  he 
gave  up  the  ghost,  and  they  covered  his  face 
with  a  sheet  of  his  favourite  newspaper. 

Old  Jingo  is  dead,  but  his  ghost  is  with  us, 
for  it  has  returned  to  inhabit  the  bodies  of 
certain  persons  calling  themselves  Imperialists. 
Had  I  the  pens  of  Mr.  Belloc  and  Mr.  Chesterton 
I  might  endeavour  to  show  that  Jingo  and 
Imperialist  had  a  common  ancestry  in  Jewry, 
and  that  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  and  the  last  Boer 
War  were  both  due  to  one  and  the  same  Oriental 
impulse.  The  suggestion,  for  what  it  is  worth, 
is  offered  to  the  British-Israel  Association.  For 
present  purposes  it  is  enough  to  point  out  that 
Imperialism  has  long  ceased  to  be  an  English 
policy  in  any  true  sense  of  the  word.  The 
last  places  in  the  world  of  which  its  modern 
advocates  seem  to  think  are  those  British  Isles 
to  which,  when  they  do  remember  them,  they 
refer  contemptuously  as  little  specks  in  the 
Atlantic  Ocean.  In  the  near  Continent  of  Europe 
they  have  seldom  displayed  any  intelligent 
interest.  Talk  to  them  of,  say,  Esthonia,  and 
you  will  find  that  their  sole  concern  about  it 
is  its  possible  inconvenience  to  Germany.      The 

94 


THE        IMPERIALIST 

only  parts  of  the  earth  for  which  they  have  a 
regard  are  those  which  are,  or  could  be,  coloured 
red  on  those  excellent  maps  which  one  used 
to  connect  with  the  name  of  the  late  Sir  Howard 
Vincent.  Very  nearly  they  cut  us  off  from  the 
whole  of  Christendom.  They  know  no  higher 
boast  than  that  which  announced  us  the  greatest 
of  Moslem  powers.  The  Cape  to  Cairo  railway 
was  their  desideratum ;  the  Channel  tunnel 
their  bugbear. 

It  was  in  a  spirit  of  high  adventure  that  the 
Empire  beyond  the  seas  was  founded.  The 
Elizabethans  may  have  been  but  splendid  pirates 
and  the  Puritans  no  nicer  in  their  dealings 
with  Massachusetts  Indians  than  with  Irish 
Papists,  but  there  was  nothing  in  the  ethics 
of  their  age  to  make  them  other  than  they  were. 
Modern  Imperialism  has  retained  their  defects 
and  shed  their  qualities.  Now  and  then  an 
effort  is  made  to  revive  the  original  romance, 
and  at  given  moments  it  may  succeed  with  a 
public  that  likes  to  be  called  insular  and  street- 
bred.  One  remembers  the  late  Poet  Laureate's 
lines — his  only  lines  one  does  remember — in 
which  he  cheered  the  Jameson  raiders  for  their 
riding  to  the  rescue  of  the  hetairai  of  the  gold 
reef  city.    The  pretence,  however,  cannot  long 

95 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

be  maintained.  We  no  longer  seek  El  Dorado ; 
we  have  found  and  annexed  it.  We  are  less  of 
pioneers  and  more  of  exploiters  than  we  were. 
We  no  longer  can  go  to  the  Indies  with  the  hope 
even  of  making  our  own  fortunes,  though  we 
may  still  assist  there  in  adding  to  the  fortune 
of  some  person  or  persons  with  a  London  office 
and  a  seat  in  Surrey.  But,  whenever  there  is 
unemployment,  young  men  are  urged  to 
emigrate,  and  so  the  troublesome  problem  of 
colonizing  England  is  indefinitely  postponed. 

The  finest  possibility  in  Empire  building,  the 
carrying  of  civilization  to  more  or  less  barbarous 
races,  is  not  one  which  appeals  to  our  most 
vocal  Imperialists,  or,  at  leasts,  as  they  tell  us, 
it  must  be  kept  strictly  within  bounds.  A 
certain  amount  of  instruction  they  do  find  it 
convenient  to  allow,  but  they  are  chiefly  apt 
to  praise  it  when  it  is,  as  Mr.  Kipling  sang, 
"  translated  by  a  stick."  A  century  ago  we  all 
had  the  same  belief  in  regard  to  wives,  walnut 
trees,  and  spaniels,  and  it  is  unfortunately  true 
that  a  few  years  in  India  or  the  Tropics  often  turn 
a  herald  of  progress  into  a  champion  of  mediae- 
valism,  just  as  they  debilitate  his  internal  organs 
of  digestion.  Material  benefits  from  his  presence 
he  does  not  grudge  the  natives.     He  protects 

96 


THE        IMPERIALIST 

the  wealth  of  some.  After  preliminary  skir- 
mishes, he  has  taught  them  the  blessings  of 
peace.  Most  gallantly  he  has  laboured  for  them 
against  famine  and  disease.  But  all  talk  of 
their  further  education  is  anathema  to  him. 

As  his  chosen  bard  has  written,  "  The  'eathen 
in  'is  blindness  must  end  where  'e  began."  Be- 
yond this  gleeful  denial  of  all  possibility  of 
progress,  the  average  Imperialist  will  not  budge. 
Discuss  the  matter  with  him  and  he  will  quote 
scores  of  cases  in  which  the  educated  native  has 
been  a  ghastly  failure,  likely  instancing  Mr. 
Grish  Chunder  De  of  the  Kipling  story,  though 
he  has  no  need  to  go  to  fiction  for  examples. 
One  knows  of  these  calamities,  and  is  sorry  about 
them.  He  knows  them  and  is  glad.  Nothing 
would  disturb  him  more  than  the  success  of 
Mr.  G.  C.  De,  and  the  idea  that  the  great-grand- 
children of  Mr.  De  may  succeed  sometimes  keeps 
him  awake  at  night. 

The  position  of  the  white  man  as  tutor  to 
the  man  of  colour  is  only  beginning  to  be 
acknowledged,  but  the  League  of  Nations 
Covenant  has  made  it  a  piece  of  practical 
politics.  Certain  lands  are  to  be  held  in  trust 
for  their  inhabitants  by  the  mandatory  Powers. 
The    arrangement    is    temporary.      Tutor    and 

97  G 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

trustee  are  to  retire  when  their  work  is  done, 
and  it  is  surely  imphed  that  they  are  to  do  all 
they  can  to  hasten  that  day.  Everything  that 
was  ever  noble  in  the  spirit  of  Imperial  expansion 
is  here,  but  there  are  to  be  no  vested  interests 
in  other  peoples'  property,  and  only  a  triumph 
when  one  day  we  haul  down  the  flag  and  sing 
a  Nunc  Dimittis.  What  is  honourable  for  us 
in  South-West  Africa  and  Samoa,  cannot  be 
shameful  in  Burmah  and  Egypt  or  anywhere 
else. 

To  the  Imperialists,  in  whom  is  old  Jingo's 
ghost,  the  new  task  is  as  ridiculous  as  novel. 
He  retains  his  motto  of  what  I  have  I  hold,  and 
what  I  have  not  I  get.  Impossible  for  him  to 
see  that  it  is  a  greater  thing  to  bear  a  mandate 
from  civilization  than  to  extract  the  last  ounce 
of  margarine  from  the  niggers'  coconuts.  At 
bottom  he  has  always  gone  back  to  think  of 
colonies  in  terms  of  commerce  and  of  depen- 
dencies in  terms  of  profit.  For  all  his  tall 
talk  and  telescope,  he  has  remained  at  heart 
as  much  the  shopkeeper  as  the  man  who  has 
never  looked  further  east  than  Whitechapel. 
He  has  been  oratorical  about  the  white  man's 
burden.  Let  us  see  if  he  will  lift  it  now  with 
a  good  grace.     Empire  makers  there  have  been 

98 


THE        IMPERIALIST 

who  would  have  risen  to  the  task,  for  at  one 
end  of  the  story  of  expansion  there  is  the  name 
of  WiUiam  Penn  and  at  the  other  that  of  Sir 
Harry  Johnston. 

Imperiahsm  in  the  countries  of  the  coloured 
races  was  put  out  of  court  by  the  League  of 
Nations.  In  the  self-governing  Dominions  it 
is  unwise  to  use  the  word  too  much.  General 
Smuts  prefers  to  speak  of  a  commonwealth, 
not  because  he  is  of  Dutch  origin,  but  because 
he  rightly  objects  to  use  a  term  which  has  become 
misleading.  The  presence  of  Dominion  repre- 
sentatives at  the  Peace  Conference  proved,  if 
proof  were  needed,  that,  call  us  what  one  will, 
we  are  a  collection  of  Allied  States  of  which 
none  is  willing  to  delegate  its  freedom  of  action 
to  another.  In  the  Globe,  indeed,  a  shrill,  small 
voice  cried  that  Mr.  Hughes  ought  to  be  the 
plenipotentiary  of  England,  but  I  noticed  no 
cablegram  asking  in  reciprocity  that  Mr.  Maxse 
should  plead  the  Australian  cause  among  the 
nations. 

Of  course,  it  is  hard  for  a  generation  which 
but  yesterday  was  so  proud  of  talking  of  the 
lion's  whelps,  to  realize  that  the  whelps  have 
come  to  maturity  and  may  resent  the  old  name, 
but    the    fact    has    to    be    faced.     Preferential 

99 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

trade  in  pianos  will  not  make  any  difference, 
nor  will  any  tinkering  with  tariffs  deflect  the 
younger  nations  from  following  their  own  com- 
mercial policy,  their  own  military  and  naval 
policy,  and  their  own  foreign  policy.  We  should 
be  grateful  to  Mr.  Hughes  for  having  made 
this  much  plain  and  indisputable,  for  where 
there  is  no  misconception  there  can  be  no 
misunderstanding.  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain's 
Empire  with  its  principle  of  "  rally  round 
Downing  Street  when  I  am  in  office,  but  ignore 
it  when  I  am  out,"  cannot  be  revived.  Colonies 
can  no  longer  be  used  as  pawns  in  party  politics. 
Fellowship  between  peoples  who  have  blood 
and  language  in  common  there  should  always 
be,  but  the  ZoUverein  scheme  was  about  the 
last  and  almost  the  worst  of  our  adaptations 
of  German  statecraft.  In  practice  it  would 
have  shown  the  British  nations  not  united  by 
regard  for  each  other,  but  banded  against  the 
rest  of  the  world  for  trade  warfare.  It  was 
Imperialism  in  its  meanest  aspect,  and  the 
decrepit  Jingo  was  behind  it. 


100 


THE    BUSINESS    MAN 

SUPERSTITIONS  die  hard,  yet  many  of 
them,  and  not  always  the  worst,  have 
been  destroyed.  Of  those  which  still  partially 
survive  none  is  more  remarkable  than  that 
which  surrounds  the  man  of  business.  In 
certain  civilizations  his  place  has  been  admitted 
to  be  secondary  in  the  scheme  of  things,  and  at 
times  he  has  suffered  temporary  and  almost 
total  eclipse,  but  within  memory  of  the  middle- 
aged  his  supreme  importance  had  until  quite 
recently  never  been  called  seriously  in  question 
by  any  save  professed  malcontents.  Belief  in 
him  has  become  almost  the  first  article  in  the 
plain  person's  creed.  In  direct  descent  from 
King  Midas,  who  when  he  bathed  in  Pactolus 
turned  its  sands  to  gold,  his  distant  progenitors 
were  in  Babylon  and  Jerusalem  in  the  temples. 
Other  prophets,  priests,  and  kings  had  their 
vogue  and  went,  or  were  permitted  to  stay  on 
condition  they  exercised  none  of  their  original 
functions.  The  man  of  business  alone  remained 
a  sacrosanct  figure  with  which  there  must  be  no 

101 


ABOUT       IT       AND       ABOUT 

more  than  the  minimum  of  interference.  He 
appeared  a  second  Samson  whom  it  was  dangerous 
to  annoy  lest  he  might  commit  suicide  in  a 
temper,  destroying  us  and  the  State  in  the  ruin 
his  fall  would  bring. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  deny  that  he  has  done 
estimable  service  to  mankind,  and  still  serves 
a  useful  purpose  in  his  own  sphere.  In  Homeric 
times,  when  he  was  almost  unknown,  Glaucus 
gave  a  hundred  oxen  for  his  suit  of  armour, 
which  must  have  been  an  extremely  cumber- 
some transaction,  and  I  am  grateful  to  a  class 
which  has  perfected  simpler  methods  of  obtain- 
ing the  necessities  of  life.  The  business  man, 
however,  is  not  content  with  being  the  best- 
paid  servant  of  the  public,  for  even  at  his  wealthi- 
est a  spark  of  divine  discontent  burns  in  him. 
According  to  Andrew  Carnegie,  millionaires  who 
laugh  are  rare.  Somewhere  in  them  is  a  troubled 
fancy  that  buying  and  selling  and  all  the  profits 
thereof  do  not  raise  them  quite  to  the  old 
priestly  or  kingly  level.  Money,  for  a  part  of 
their  lives,  may  be  to  them  what  Italy  was  to 
the  company  of  iEneas,  "  that  to  which  the 
rowers  steered,"  but  though  its  acquisition 
automatically  gives  them  power,  it  does  not  in 
itself  seem  to  command  reverence.     When  their 

102 


THE        BUSINESS        MAN 

Italy  is  reached,  though  to  reach  it  they  have 
hardened  their  hearts  Hke  Rameses  and  morti- 
fied their  flesh  hke  anchorites,  that  final  reward 
may  be  denied  them. 

The  other  day  I  saw  on  a  stall  of  second-hand 
books  a  volume  called  The  Romance  of  Trade, 
and  its  date  of  publication  was  the  year  in  which 
Tennyson,  saluting  the  jubilee  of  his  queen, 
glorified  her  reign  for  its  "  fifty  years  of  broaden- 
ing commerce."  In  earlier  ages  there  had  been 
attached  to  the  business  man,  not  exactly  oblo- 
quy, but  an  imputation  that  his  main  object 
in  life  was  to  provide  handsomely  for  himself 
and  his  family.  When  the  Phoenicians  visited 
our  shores,  the  Britons  knew  them  for  the 
traders  they  were,  bartered  tin  with  them, 
and  were  more  or  less  content  to  be  swindled 
by  them,  but  it  is  not  thought  that  they  dedicated 
groves  to  them.  In  the  days  of  Mr.  Gradgrind 
we  did  not  fully  grasp  all  the  wonder,  heroism, 
and  romance,  that  lay  hid  in  the  building  of  a 
big  business,  but  we  were  well  on  the  way  to 
realization.  I  like  to  think  of  the  pleasure 
that  book  I  saw  and  left  on  the  stall  must  have 
given  to  many  who  from  the  days  of  their 
industrious  apprenticeship  had  toiled  without 
spiritual  reward,  and  of  what  solace  it  brought 

X03 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

them  in  an  old  age  which  material  well-being 
might   else   have   made   monotonous. 

In  its  glowing  pages  the  business  man  must 
have  read  much  he  had  scarcely  suspected  of 
himself.  Some  awake  to  find  themselves  famous, 
but  he,  always  wide  awake  about  his  own  affairs, 
suddenly  discovered  that  someone  had  added 
an  aureole  to  the  silk  hat  he  habitually  wore 
to  the  City  and  to  church.  In  all  subsequent 
consideration  of  him  one  has  to  deal,  not  with 
a  common  citizen,  but  with  a  legendary  figure. 
Every  ancient  lore  and  myth  has  been  pillaged 
to  find  epithets  for  him  and  similes  for  his 
instruments.  He  who  was  once  called  trades- 
man, and  took  no  shame  in  his  calling,  has 
become  knight,  pioneer,  and  captain.  If  his 
interests  lie  in  shipping,  be  sure  his  grimiest 
cargo  boats  are  argosies,  and  if  rails  are  his 
concern  he  has  the  pleasant  knowledge  that 
he  is  hero  of  the  romance  which  brings  up  the 
nine-fifteen.  He  is  the  new  Themistocles ;  if 
he  cannot  fiddle,  he  can  turn  a  poor  village  into 
a  great  city.  He  is  hailed  as  backbone  of  his 
country,  and  told  daily  what  a  mass  of  inverte- 
brate jelly  it  would  be  without  him. 

Alone  of  the  men  of  his  time,  he  has  established 
a  religion  in  which  any  large  number  of  people 

104 


THE        BUSINESS        MAN 

believe.  It  is,  indeed,  a  very  ancient  faith, 
but  its  wide  acceptance  was  long  delayed  by 
prevalence  of  other  and  often  contrary  beliefs. 
Having  but  a  single  tenet,  it  has  the  advantage 
of  simplicity.  Timon's  merchant  put  it  into 
a  phrase  :  "  If  traffick  do  it,  the  gods  do  it." 
Those  eight  words  are  the  business  man's  credo 
and  his  help  in  time  of  trouble,  strengthening 
him  against  every  calamity  thtit  may  befall. 
When  war  began,  they  gave  him  the  assurance 
to  placard  his  streets  with  the  motto  of  "  Business 
as  Usual,"  and,  with  armies  yet  but  nibbling 
at  one  another,  they  inspired  him  to  proclaim 
"  the  war  after  the  war,"  that  really  serious 
affair  with  trade  instead  of  trenches  to  be 
captured,  and  shares  and  golden  sovereigns 
instead  of  silver  medals  for  the  victors.  Heart- 
ened by  this  new  device,  the  soldiers  left  England. 
In  the  new  crusade,  "  Business  as  Usual "  was 
to  shine  for  them  as  In  hoc  signo  vinces. 

The  British  public  has  a  way  of  taking  people 
at  their  own  valuation  if  the  valuation  has  been 
made  high  enough.  One  after  another,  the 
business  men  were  called  to  assist  in  the  councils 
of  the  nation.  Some  of  their  names  have  es- 
caped me,  but  there  was  a  Stanley  who  had  once 
been   something   else,    and    someone    who    was 

105 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

shortly  to  be  known  as  Inverforth  ;  there  was 
a  Geddes  who  could  run  a  railway,  and  was 
ready  to  run  anything  on  earth  ;  there  were 
others  who  had  struck  oil,  sold  coal,  or  shown 
financial  ability  in  directing  a  group  of  news- 
papers. On  the  day  before  any  appointment 
was  made,  the  man  in  the  street  might  without 
great  show  of  ignorance  have  confessed  to  know- 
ing nothing  of  the  Empire's  coming  saviour,  but, 
when  the  appointment  was  announced,  he  had 
no  misgivings.  He  accepted  it  as  a  good  Catholic 
accepts  the  election  of  a  new  Pope. 

Only  religious  awe  can  account  for  the  blind 
trust  we  placed  in  our  business  Ministers.  If 
we  put  confidence  in  Mr.  Asquith  or  Mr.  George 
it  is  not  because  they  are  more  or  less  distinguished 
members  of  the  legal  professions.  If  we  have 
hopes  for  M.  Paderewski  in  Poland,  it  is  not 
because  he  once  charmed  us  at  the  Queen's 
Hall.  Had  we  reflected  at  all  on  what  we  knew 
of  the  class  to  which  those  others  belonged,  we 
might  have  decided  that,  however  capable  they 
were  in  their  own  sphere,  it  was,  on  the  whole, 
unlikely  they  would  have  that  breadth  of  sym- 
pathy and  mind  desirable  for  conducting 
affairs  of  State.  Sir  Isaac  Harman,  in  the 
novel  by  Mr,  Wells,  is  a  character  typical  of 

106 


THE        BUSINESS        MAN 

those  who  succeed  in  commerce  and  industry. 
"  Anybody  in  his  line  of  business  who  wanted 
to  be  generous,  who  possessed  any  broader 
interests  than  the  shop,  who  troubled  to  think 
about  the  nation  or  the  race  or  any  of  the  deeper 
mysteries  of  life,  was  bound  to  go  down  before 
him."  Yet,  if  any  demurred  to  the  new  appoint- 
ments, they  were  told  that  these  men  had  made 
England  what  it  was,  and  with  that  cliche 
the  argument  for  the  time  ended. 

Whether  the  business  man  should  be  held 
responsible  for  some  of  our  present  troubles 
is  a  question  worth  examining.  Concentration 
on  the  welfare  of  his  firm  or  company,  with 
the  resulting  belief  that  volume  of  trade  is  the 
measure  of  a  nation's  happiness,  have  hidden 
from  him  much  that  is  pikestaff  plain  to  others. 
Whilst  the  workers  were  only  asking  for  more 
wages,  his  opposition  was  tinged  with  sympathy. 
He  and  they  were  both  in  what  Stevenson  called 
the  handicap  race  for  six-penny  pieces.  Now, 
when  they  have  won  a  few^  coins,  he  sees  what 
they  want  to  do  with  them.  Leisure,  which  a 
French  writer  has  stvled  "  greatest  and  most 
beautiful  of  men's  conquests,"  is  what  they 
propose  to  buy,  and  the  busmess  man,  who 
may  never  have  had  that  luxury,  is  uncompre- 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

hendingly  angry.  If  it  had  been  gramophones 
or  beer  or  ostrich  feathers,  anything  he  could 
manufacture  or  import,  it  would  have  been 
another  matter.  Diogenes  was  doubtless  told 
by  his  friends,  if  he  had  any,  that  he  was  a  fool 
not  to  obtain  better  housing  and  home  comforts 
from  Alexander,  and  the  same  information  is 
freely  given  to  modern  workers.  Fools  they 
may  be,  yet  they  are  so  many  that  their  point 
of  view  has  to  be  considered.  Seeley,  the  busi- 
ness man's  historian,  wrote  that  war  was  for 
England  an  industry  and  the  most  profitable 
of  all  investments,  but  events  have  belied  him. 
One  wiser  than  he  said  that  all  warlike  people 
were  a  little  idle,  and,  for  a  nation  largely  com- 
posed of  ex-soldiers,  the  captain  of  industry 
is  neither  the  best  nor  the  most  tactful  governor. 
Like  Humpty-Dumpty,  the  man  of  business 
has  been  set  in  an  unnaturally  exalted  position, 
but  his  balance  is  now  precarious.  If  he  fall 
there  will  be  no  mending  him,  and  his  will  be 
the  most  lost  of  all  lost  causes.  It  would  be 
a  kind  and  wise  act  if  somebody  were  to  move 
him  from  the  wall's  top  and  lay  him  gently 
on  the  humble  earth  to  which  he  belongs,  and 
which  for  a  while  has  belonged  to  him. 


108 


THE    COUNTRY    HOUSE 

A  LITTLE  while  ago  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough made  a  somewhat  disconcerting 
communication  to  the  Press.  His  letter  con- 
tained a  threat.  Attention  of  its  readers  was, 
in  the  first  place,  called  to  the  lavish  manner  in 
which  the  class  to  which  the  Duke  belongs  had 
exercised  the  "  traditional  English  virtue  of 
hospitality."  Secondly,  one  was  reminded  how 
many  public  services  had  been  freely  performed 
by  that  same  class.  Thirdly,  and  lastly,  it  was 
suggested  that  its  members,  to  escape  the  in- 
cidence of  taxation,  might  decide  to  quit  lands 
and  houses  and  to  join  the  ranks  of  the  idle 
rich.  At  first  glance  there  did  seem  to  be 
something  rather  alarming  in  this  prospect,  for 
few  things  could  be  more  deplorable  than  a 
further  depopulation  of  the  countryside,  and 
one  had  an  uneasy  vision  of  an  emigrant  ship 
conveying  the  owner  of  Blenheim  and  other 
sons  of  the  soil  to  some  asylum  in  the  south 
of  France.  Reflection  allayed  dismay,  or, 
rather,   it  brought  one  to    see  that  the  worst 

109 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

prophesied    by  the    Duke    is  already  a  matter 
of  history. 

The  great  territorial  landowners,  for  whom 
alone  he  has  a  right  to  speak,  have  never  been 
the  flesh,  bone,  and  fibre  of  the  counties.  At 
best  they  have  been  but  birds  of  passage.  At 
stated  seasons  of  the  year  rural  England  has 
enjoyed  their  presence,  but  the  exigencies  of 
their  lives  have  compelled  them  always  to 
pass  a  great  deal  of  their  time  elsewhere.  May- 
fair  and  a  moor  in  the  Scottish  highlands  have 
claimed  them,  and  there  have  been  weeks  of 
recuperation  on  blue  water  or  in  foreign  parts. 
Somehow  or  other,  when  blinds  are  drawn  in 
hall  or  castle  and  the  flag  no  longer  flutters 
from  the  tower,  existence  in  the  village  seems 
to  lose  only  its  froth  and  nothing  of  its  essence. 
The  magnates,  whose  departure  is  foretold, 
have  rated  too  highly  their  importance  in  the 
agricultural  community.  Their  hospitality,  to 
which  attention  has  been  called,  has  always 
had  about  it  a  flavour  of  the  town.  It  has  been 
an  affair  of  invitations  and  set  occasions,  never 
of  the  open  door  which  among  your  true  country- 
men is  the  mark  of  a  hospitable  house.  As 
to  public  services,  they  have  been  mostly  per- 
formed   at    Westminster,    which,    as    they    say 

110 


THE         COUNTRY         HOUSE 

in  Sleepy  Hollow,  is  a  very  distant  place,  and 
never  did  much  for  the  likes  of  us.     In  the  days 
of  their  greatest  power  the  territorial  nobility 
was    in   its   whiggery  nearer  to  the  metropolis 
than  to  the  countryside  where  the  king  over  the 
water    was    still  being   pledged   in   home-brew. 
To-day,  its  influence  in  local  politics  is  largely 
vicarious.     Even  on  the  county  bench,  so  long 
a  preserve  for  the  landed  interest,  its  members 
have  been  notoriously  prominent  by  their  absence. 
Not  in  Blenheim  Palace  or  any  such  lordly 
mansion  would  one  have  sought  the  men  who 
in  old  days  were,  for  good  or  ill,  moulding  the 
destinies    of    most    English    England.     In    the 
social  history  of  those  times  the  houses  of  most 
account  were  those  of  the  squires,  they  who  from 
year's  end  to  year's  end  seldom  moved  more 
than  a  dozen  miles  from  their  gates,  had  their 
hearts  in  flock  and  field,  in  rough  sport,  in  the 
hail-fellowship    of    neighbours    of     their    kind. 
"  The    little    independent    gentleman    of    three 
hundred  pounds  per  annum,"  as  the  antiquary 
Grose  styled  him,  was  a  salient  figure  in  the  life 
of  the  land.     To  the  county  town  he  went  only 
for  elections  and  assizes  ;    to  church  he  went 
regularly ;      to    the    ale-house     often    enough. 
Walking,  as  well  as  riding,  he  carried  a  whip 

111 


ABOUT       IT        AND        ABOUT 

that  he  might  smack  it,  and  he  gave  warning 
of  his  coming  by  the  view-halloo.  In  his  young- 
days  he  was  generally  a  great  fellow  with  the 
wenches,  and  if  he  had  not  the  Frenchman's 
droit  du  seigneur,  that,  maybe,  made  small 
difference.  His  literature  was  the  weekly 
gazette,  The  Complete  Justice,  and  a  book  on 
Farriery.  With  so  much  learning  he  was  natural 
arbitrator  in  all  disputes  concerning  the  govern- 
ment of  the  parish. 

"  Alas  !  "  wrote  the  excellent  Grose,  before 
the  eighteenth  century  had  ended,  "  these  men 
and  their  houses  are  no  more  .  .  .  the  estate 
is  conveyed  to  the  steward  of  the  neighbouring 
Lord,  or  else  to  some  Nabob,  Contractor,  or 
Limb  of  the  Law."  The  American  war,  followed 
by  the  French  war,  not  to  mention  increasing 
taste  for  luxury,  meant  the  end  of  the  old  order. 
It  would  be  easy  to  draw  a  parallel  with  changes 
in  our  own  age,  but  it  would  be  only  specious. 
When  the  old-fashioned  merchant  or  attorney 
bought  his  place  in  the  country,  he  came  to  it 
with  intention  there  to  pass  the  rest  of  his 
years,  and  regarded  himself  as  founder  of  a 
family  which  should  take  root  in  his  newly 
bought  acres.  The  latest  purchasers  of  land 
are  of  another  kidney,  and  their  motor-cars  are 

112 


THE         COUNTRY  HOUSE 

symbols  of  their  transience.  Anywhere  within 
sixty  miles  of  a  great  town  they  are  likely  to 
be  mere  week-enders,  persons  to  whom  wood, 
arable,  and  watered  meadow  are  so  much 
pleasure  ground.  If  their  property  prove,  as 
it  often  does,  a  disappointment,  they  will  move 
to  another  shire,  leaving  behind  but  a  trail 
of  dust. 

The  country  house,  with  such  occupants, 
may  for  a  little  while  blaze  with  light  and  ring 
with  gaiety,  and  the  folk  of  the  district  are 
agreeably  awed  by  the  ostentation  of  wealth. 
The  nouveau  riche,  with  a  weakness  of  which 
he  could  never  have  been  suspected  in  the  City, 
makes  his  bid  for  social  prestige,  and  up  to  a 
point  he  finds  his  poor  neighbours  submissive, 
but  secretly  they  despise  him.  One  cannot 
honour  a  man  who  does  not  know  a  field  of 
wheat  from  a  field  of  barley,  and  cannot 
distinguish  bull  from  bullock.  Moreover,  when 
"  trade's  unfeeling  train  usurp  the  land,"  a 
crop  of  troubles  usually  arises.  The  old  squire 
may  have  been  a  stickler  for  every  right  given 
him  in  the  faded  ink  of  his  parchments,  and 
his  interpretation  of  the  game  laws  was  not 
always  wise  or  liberal,  but  he  had  a  decent 
respect  for  such  rights  as  law  or  custom  allowed 

118  H 


ABOUT        IT       AND       ABOUT 

to  others.  His  successor,  with  character  formed 
in  the  school  of  competition,  believes  in  the 
weakest  going  to  the  wall,  and  has  no  other 
precedent  to  guide  him.  If  he  has  bought  the 
soil  of  a  piece  of  common  as  appanage  to  his 
sporting  estate,  he  will  resent  the  ancient  women 
who  from  time  out  of  mind  have  come  thither 
to  gather  kindling-wood.  If  an  immemorial 
right-of-way  lies  through  his  property,  he  will 
see  it  only  as  a  path  for  the  convenience  of 
poachers,  and  will  put  a  hedge  or  wall  across 
it.  Should  cottages,  dilapidated  but  not  neces- 
sarily beyond  repair,  have  been  included  in 
his  purchase,  he  will  view  them  as  so  much 
brick  and  slate  for  the  erection  of  garage  or  other 
modern  convenience  at  the  manor  house  he  is 
renovating. 

Quickly  won  and  quickly  lost  is  the  popu- 
larity of  the  city  gent  turned  country  gentleman. 
He  comes  from  what  Cobbett  called  the  Wen, 
and  to  the  Wen  he  often  returns,  vowing  ven- 
geance against  the  prejudice,  ingratitude,  and 
opposition  he  has  met  in  the  rural  community. 
One  does  not  regret  his  going,  and  yet,  if  the 
country  house  is  to  be  inhabited  at  all,  who 
is  to  live  there  ?  The  squireen,  the  original 
Tony  Lumpkin,  went  long  ago  to  happier  hunting 

114 


THE         COUNTRY  HOUSE 

grounds,  but  what  has  become  of  those  who 
took  his  place  ?  Where  are  the  descendants  of 
the  marchand  enrichi,  of  whom  Montalembert, 
on  a  visit  to  England  some  sixty  years  ago, 
still  could  write  so  hopefully  ?  Some  of  them, 
by  judicious  marriages  and  investments  away 
from  land,  have  joined  the  ranks  of  the  territorial 
nobility,  and  as  such  are  but  half  countrymen 
or  less.  Others,  who  had  not  their  good  fortune 
or  wisdom,  who  had  put  their  all  at  the  hazard 
of  harvests,  were  broken  by  the  agricultural 
depression  of  the  'eighties  and  'nineties.  The 
few  who  by  cutting  down  every  expense  con- 
trived to  hold  to  their  homes  from  sheer  love 
of  them,  and  in  defiance  of  every  principle  of 
business,  are  lonely  figures  on  the  English  map 
to-day.  A  copse,  a  field  or  two,  a  paddock 
of  rank  grass,  may  be  all  they  hold  outside  the 
house  which  for  three  or  four  generations  has 
sheltered  their  people.  Taxation  will  not  spare 
them,  but  they  will  not  be  able  to  plead  with 
tales  of  costly  entertainment  or  distinguished 
public  services.  They  are  proud  as  poor,  and 
poor  as  pleaders.  They  are  those  who  have 
drawn  into  their  shells,  and  they  do  not  delude 
themselves  with  an  idea  that  the  world  will 
be  deeply  moved  if  they  perish  in  their  shells. 

115 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

Mr.  Gladstone  once  hinted  broadly  that  land 
owning  was  an  occupation  only  suitable  for  those 
who  did  not  look  on  it  as  a  source  of  revenue, 
or,  in  other  words,  for  those  who  had  made, 
or  were  making,  their  money  elsewhere.  Doubt- 
less it  is  suitable  for  them,  but  recent  experience 
does  not  show  it  to  be  suitable  for  the  land, 
nor  for  those  around  them  whose  livelihood, 
whose  very  lives,  are  in  the  land.  Purchasers 
of  property,  even  if  their  wealth  saves  them  from 
the  temptation  of  rack-renting,  are  seldom  pure 
philanthropists.  A  big  head  of  game  looms 
larger  in  their  ambition  than  a  model  village, 
and  their  notion  of  good  cultivation  is  three- 
parts  cover  for  partridges,  under  a  tenant  who 
uses  neither  snares  nor  ferrets.  There  is  better 
hope  in  the  farmer  himself  when  he  chooses 
to  become  landlord.  If  he  has  not  the  means 
to  inhabit  such  country  houses  as  those  of  which 
Mr.  Galsworthy  writes,  nor  to  imitate  the  state 
of  a  Sir  Aylmer  Aylmer,  he  is  often  a  man  of 
moderate  riches.  Too  much  a  materialist, 
perhaps,  to  satisfy  those  who  have  dreamed  of 
a  new  dawn  for  "  England's  green  and  pleasant 
land,"  he  will  yet  avoid  the  cruder  mistakes  of 
strange  invaders.  He  understands  the  earth's 
nature,  and  has  at  least  some  sympathy  with  its 

116 


THE         COUNTRY  HOUSE 

people.  What  he  lacks  to-day  is  confidence. 
He  is  doubtful  about  buying ;  doubtful  about 
bringing  up  his  sons  in  the  old  life.  But,  if 
the  gap  is  to  be  filled,  I  know  no  other  than 
the  farmer  who  can  fill  it. 

Possibly  the  whole  of  our  land  system  will 
in  the  next  score  of  years  or  so  come  under 
revision.  Park  and  chase,  woodland  and  wide 
fields,  may  all  presently  be  turned  into  so  many 
allotments  under  peasant  proprietors  or  State 
ownership,  and  then  the  country  house  will, 
if  it  exist  at  all,  be  merely  the  sleeping  quarters 
of  a  townsman  no  longer  concerned  even  to  play 
at  rusticity.  Such  a  change  may  prove  to  be 
for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  human 
number,  but  I  hope  that  in  an  intensively 
cultivated  England  asylums  will  yet  be  kept 
for  bird  and  beast.  I  hold  small  brief  for  the 
pheasant  and  none  for  the  fox,  both  too  long 
a  fetish  with  the  powers  that  were,  but  for 
solemn  rooks,  gay  squirrels,  and  all  the  company 
of  songsters  I  would  ask  protection  from  those 
who  may  come  to  work  or  dwell  where  the 
old  house  so  long  stood  embowered  by  its  trees. 


117 


THE    RATIONALIST 

RATIONALISM  is  a  spent  force.  In  its 
heydey,  Lecky  could  write  that  educated 
people  received  accounts  of  miracles  with  a 
derisive  incredulity  which  dispensed  with  all 
examination  of  the  evidence.  He  wrote  in  an 
age  which  revered  law  and  order.  Sometimes 
he  shivered  at  the  thought  of  growing  demo- 
cracy, but  the  shivering  fits  were  not  so  serious 
as  to  disturb  the  train  of  his  philosophic  thought. 
In  politics  and  economics  certain  things  had 
been  put  beyond  the  limits  of  intelligent  dis- 
cussion. There  were  the  estates  of  the  realm 
and  free  trade  ;  there  were  supply  and  demand 
and  the  rights  of  property.  From  time  to  time 
these  things  might  need  a  little  furbishing,  a 
trifling  adjustment,  but,  essentially,  they  were 
for  all  time.  He  who  tried  to  break  through 
them  was  an  anarchist.  He  might  be  sent  to 
prison,  but  Bedlam  was  the  right  place  for  him. 
Other  laws,  too,  had  been  established  in  other 
spheres,  and  they,  also,  were  beyond  dispute. 
The  ways  of  Nature  were  regulated  by  them. 
She  was  progressive,  broadening  from  precedent 

118 


THE        RATIONALIST 

to  precedent,  but  she  did  not  jump.  All  the 
grave  investigators,  the  solemn  jury  of  the 
scientists,  poured  scorn  on  the  suggestion  that 
she  ever  had  been,  or  could  be,  skittish.  Noah's 
ark  was  put  away  with  the  other  toys  of  child- 
hood, and  the  old  wives'  fables  were  put  into 
annotated  editions  for  the  use  of  those  who  would 
study  the  weaknesses  of  primitive  humanity. 
If  one  had  told  the  educated  person  of  super- 
natural occurrences  in  the  garden  and  fairies 
dancing  on  his  lawn,  he  would  only  have  walked 
to  the  window  under  pressure  of  courtesy,  or 
because  it  is  always  well  to  humour  lunatics. 
Inevitably,  he  would  then  have  said  that  he 
saw  nothing,  and  he  would  finally  have  lost 
patience  if  one  had  replied  that  his  vision 
might  be  defective.  Fairies,  he  knew,  did  not 
exist,  and,  if  they  had  existed,  it  would  have 
been  necessary  to  suppress  them  as  notorious 
violators  of  law  and  order.  There  was  only  one 
class  of  beings  more  pernicious  than  non-existent 
fairies,  and  it  consisted  of  the  fools  who  claimed 
to  see  them. 

Human  energy,  moreover,  had  been  bringing 
to  pass  things  which  magic  had  never  attempted. 
The  oldest  inhabitant  who  used  to  babble  of  a 
murrain  put  on  somebody's  cow,  and    recalled 

119 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

the  incident  as  a  landmark  of  his  youth,  had 
to  own  that  in  his  later  days  he  had  seen  stranger 
portents  which  were  due  neither  to  infernal 
nor  divine  intervention.  Flame  came  up  out  of 
the  earth.  Monsters  belching  smoke  and  sparks 
ran  from  end  to  end  of  the  country.  Whole 
tracts  of  green  land  had  been  turned  into  clinker- 
covered  wildernesses.  Rationalism,  according 
to  one  of  its  own  historians,  rose  with  com- 
mercialism, and  with  industrialism  came  to 
maturity.  In  those  years  people  grew  like 
Caesar's  Germans,  for  they  worshipped  only 
those  gods  from  whom  they  were  deriving  material 
advantage.  Applied  science  fed,  clothed,  and 
warmed  them,  and  lighted  them  to  bed.  It 
took  them  from  Manchester  to  Birmingham,  and 
was  capable  of  taking  them  to  Chicago.  As 
it  so  conveniently  solved  the  problems  of  daily 
life,  it  would  probably  solve  the  riddle  of  the 
universe  when  it  had  time.  After  seeing  a 
blast  furnace,  it  was  difficult  for  a  man  of  common 
sense  to  believe  in  miracles.  What  was  not 
realized  was  that  when  he  had  seen  a  blast 
furnace  a  few  times  more,  it  would  be  impossible 
for  him  to  keep  his  senses  at  all  if  he  did  not 
believe  in  miracles. 

Such,  however,  was  the  truth.     If  anything, 

120 


THE        RATIONALIST 

we  have  grown  too  credulous.  A  little  while 
ago,  when  there  was  neither  a  war  nor  a  strike 
to  provide  the  public  with  excitement,  the  walls 
of  a  country  parsonage  began  to  exude  oil. 
Eminent  persons  at  once  suggested  this  was  the 
work  of  a  malicious  spirit.  It  does  not  matter 
whether  they  were  right  or  wrong,  nor  need  I 
more  than  mention  that  some  weeks  earlier 
I  had  myself  identified  the  domestic  servant 
with  the  Poltergeist.  The  notable  point  is  that 
in  these  days  people  of  the  highest  education 
do  not  reject  accounts  of  miracles  without 
waiting  for  evidence.  On  the  contrary,  at  any 
strange  happening  they  advance  a  miracle  to 
account  for  it,  before  the  evidence  has  even  been 
collected. 

Spiritualists  have,  of  course,  their  own  way  of 
explaining  this  change  of  sentiment,  but  I  de- 
cline to  believe  it  due  to  any  of  their  missionary 
efforts.  Bergson,  coming  out  of  the  mysterious 
East,  with  appeals  to  intuition  on  matters  beyond 
the  range  of  ascertainable  fact,  may  have  had 
a  little  to  do  with  it,  but  not  much.  That 
Professor  Planck  should  have  breached  the 
fortress  of  Newtonian  mechanics  is  momentous, 
but  there  are  very  few  people  who  know,  or 
care,  anything  about  Professor  Planck.     Success 

121 


ABOUT       IT        AND        ABOUT 

of  opinion,  if  I  may  quote  Lecky  once  more, 
depends  less  on  the  force  of  its  arguments  than 
on  the  predisposition  of  society  to  receive  them. 
In  his  day,  it  had  been  made  ready  for  rationahsm ; 
at  present,  it  is  ready  for  almost  anything  else. 
Science,  colossal  in  the  last  century,  is  now 
recognized  as  a  child,  considered  promising  by 
some,  and  disappointing  by  others.  It  concocts 
poisonous  gases,  and  teaches  how  they  may 
be  used  to  overwhelm  an  army  corps.  It  an- 
nually advances  medical  knowledge,  yet  in  the 
cure  of  human  ills  it  does  not  keep  pace  with 
theoretical  progress.  In  old  days  the  Rationalist 
butted  against  shams  and  overthrew  tyrannies, 
but,  unconsciously,  he  paved  a  way  for  other 
shams  and  tyrannies  to  follow.  When  once 
the  idea  was  grasped  that  man  and  ape  had 
common  ancestry,  it  seemed  more  legitimate  to 
treat  man  as  though  he  were  an  ape.  "  Survi- 
val of  the  fittest  "  made  an  excuse  for  aggressive 
wars  and  all  the  horrors  of  industrial  competition. 
Birds  of  paradise  were  exterminated,  whilst  the 
cockroach  increased  and  multiplied.  Francis  of 
Assisi  was  flouted  as  a  person  of  unenlightened 
views.  The  hard  rock  of  facts  had  been  found, 
and  it  was  found  to  be  very  hard  indeed.  To- 
day,   the    world's    movement   is    to    get   away 

122 


THE        RATIONALIST 

from  it  at  full  speed,  even  by  the  most  irrational 
courses. 

Attempting  to  recover  his  position,  the  Ration- 
alist has  lately  taken  to  advertise  his  wares. 
In  parts  of  the  newspapers  where  one  is  accus- 
tomed to  find  requests  to  buy  somebody's  toffee 
or  to  sell  one's  false  teeth,  a  new  and  striking 
query  is  often  to  be  found  :  "Of  all  the  Isms, 
have  you  studied  Rationalism  ?  "  It  is  a  clever 
appeal  to  jaded  appetites.  If  you  happen  to 
be  for  the  moment  out  of  tune  with  botulism, 
socialism,  cannibalism,  or  whatever  may  have 
been  your  latest  occupation  or  recreation,  here 
are  people  ready  to  cater  for  you,  and  a  throb 
of  interest  is  aroused.  For  me  the  next  step 
was  to  write  for  further  particulars,  and  by 
return  of  post  I  received  a  copy  of  a  publication 
called  The  Literary  Guide.  It  was  six  months 
old,  but  I  am  ready  to  think  it  was  sent  to  me 
because  it  was  a  particularly  good  number. 
The  first  article  in  it  was  by  Mr.  Joseph  McCabe, 
and  it  dealt  with  the  League  of  Nations.  The 
writer  alluded  to  Poland  as  "an  annexe  of  the 
Vatican,"  and  dismissed  Lord  Robert  Cecil  as 
a  mystic.  This  did  not  seem  very  helpful,  so 
I  turned  to  the  end  of  the  paper  and  found  a 
letter  from  an  anonymous  individual  who  had 

123 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

lost  religion.  It  read  rather  like  a  paragraph 
lifted  from  the  War  Cry,  emasculated  by  a 
sub-editor,  and  inverted  by  a  mischievous  com- 
positor. The  rest  of  the  contents  was  not 
specially  notable,  except  for  a  joke  about  Abra- 
ham's bosom,  which,  I  understand,  was  current 
in  the  patriarch's  own  age.  More  illuminating 
was  a  pamphlet  giving  the  aims  of  the  Rationalist 
Press  Association.  In  this  it  was  stated  that, 
"  so  far  as  can  be  judged  informally  from 
correspondence  received,"  the  majority  of  mem- 
bers are  not  Theists.  It  was  clearly  implied 
that  it  did  not  matter  whether  they  were  or  not. 
The  old  order  of  Rationalists  included  many 
great  men,  and  most  of  them,  perhaps,  were 
inclined  to  violence.  Huxley,  "  knocking  an 
imposture  on  the  head,"  is  a  figure  large  enough 
to  give  distinction  to  a  whole  age,  and  to  such  a 
man,  be  he  dead  or  alive,  I  would  always  take 
off  my  hat.  I  have  heard  of  "  Bradlaugh  and 
blasphemy  "  as  an  alliterative  tag  in  vogue  with 
platform  speakers  in  the  'eighties.  There  were 
giants  in  those  days,  and  they  were  so  absorbed 
by  the  question  of  religion  that  some  of  them 
had  to  attack  it  with  hammer  and  tongs.  One 
would  hope  to  find  in  their  successors  a  remnant 
of  size  and  strength,  a  touch  of  passion,  or,  at 

124 


THE        RATIONALIST 

least,  an  indication  that  they  cared  greatly 
about  the  things  for  or  against  which  one  supposed 
them  to  be  fighting.  Instead,  one  meets  Mr. 
McCabe  approaching  a  world  problem  in  the 
spirit  of  a  pernickety  district  visitor  looking  for 
trouble,  and,  finally,  one  comes  on  the  announce- 
ment that  to  be  or  not  to  be  a  Theist  is  of  no 
moment.  The  new  Rationalists  have  a  tameness 
as  shocking  as  that  of  the  beasts  on  Alexander 
Selkirk's  island.  They  touch  the  level  of 
Addison's  young  man,  who  had  doubts  about 
immortality,  and  by  his  subsequent  talk  at 
the  table  contrived  to  frighten  his  sister  and 
to  debauch  the  butler. 


125 


THE    FABIAN    SOCIETY 

EVERY  intelligent  boy  and  girl  who  has 
been  given  sufficient  education  to  reach 
the  matriculation  standard  must,  at  some  time 
between  the  seventeenth  and  twentieth  year, 
put  to  him-,  or  her-,  self  a  certain  momentous 
question.  With  a  horizon  daily  expanding,  an 
hour  must  arrive  to  ask,  "  What  is  a  Fabian  ?  " 
Take  the  case  of  the  undergraduate  at  Oxford 
or  Cambridge.  At  latest  on  the  first  day  of  his 
first  term,  he  is  faced  with  this  problem,  but, 
having  several  others  to  solve,  he  may  fail  to 
give  it  the  consideration  it  deserves.  His 
breakfast  table  is  probably  laden  with  invitations 
to  have  his  photograph  taken  by  Messrs.  Hills 
and  Saunders,  to  obtain  socks  and  gown  from 
Mr.  Shepherd,  tobacco  from  another,  books 
and  wine  from  a  fourth  and  fifth.  So  much 
attention  is  flattering,  but  the  really  sensitive 
mind  is  yet  more  pleasantly  titillated  by  the 
circular  which  casually  suggests  membership  of 
the  Fabian  Society.  It  is  difficult  to  resist  the 
call.  Yesterday  a  schoolboy,  and  to-day  asked 
to   associate   one's   unimportant   ego   with   the 

126 


THE         FABIAN         SOCIETY 

beneficent  yet  mysterious  work  of  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Sidney  Webb  !  New  visions  arise,  and  one 
dreams  of  basking  in  the  brilliance  of  G.  B.  S. 
himself.  Wherefore  the  real  question  in  many 
cases  goes  unanswered.  Should  one  become 
a  Fabian,  one  would  immediately  begin  a  course 
of  investigating  the  whole  world,  and  conse- 
quently have  little  leisure  for  close  inquiry  into 
the  meaning  of  oneself.  Should  one  miss  the 
chance,  there  would  be  nothing  for  it  but  to 
affect  the  pose  of  ignorance  that  it  had  ever 
existed,  or,  anyhow,  that  it  did  not  matter  in 
the  least.  For  all  whom  it  may  concern,  however, 
this  answer  is  given  :  a  Fabian  is  a  principle  on 
two  legs. 

The  Fabian  Society  likes  to  enlist  its  members 
young,  whilst  they  can  yet  be  moulded.  Those 
who  in  later  life  are  received  into  its  bosom, 
if  one  may  use  such  a  word  of  a  body  that  is  by 
nature  flat-chested,  have  probably  done  some 
independent  thinking,  and  independence  is  of 
all  things  the  most  distrusted  at  41,  Grosvenor 
Road,  Westminster.  If  it  has  gone  far  enough 
to  give  you  an  individuality,  you  are  well  nigh 
a  hopeless  case.  In  that  great  blue  book  to 
be  compiled  in  the  Fabian  future,  wherein  will 
be  enumerated  all  the  inhabitants  of  these  islands 

127 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

who  can  be  classified  according  to  types,  you  will 
have  no  place.  Instead,  you  will  be  listed  in 
its  appendix,  a  black  book,  which  it  is  hoped 
will  be  slender,  wherein  will  be  the  names  of  all 
those  who  cannot  be  classified  at  all.  In  the 
state  arranged  on  Fabian  lines,  you  will  do 
everything  by  rule ;  rise,  dress,  work,  take 
nourishment  and  recreation,  see  the  stars,  repro- 
duce the  species,  and,  above  all,  think,  according 
to  rules  and  time-tables  drawn  up  by  those 
who  have  made  lifelong  study  of  these  several 
activities.  A  present  difficulty  is  that  even 
recognized  experts  occasionally  differ.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Webb  are  not  agreed  on  dietary,  while 
the  conclusions  reached  by  Mr.  G.  D.  H.  Cole 
in  economics  are  painfully  heterodox.  Such 
divergences  are  regrettable,  but,  after  all,  one 
should  remember  that  a  generation  ago  the 
Fabian  Society  had  scarcely  begun  to  regulate 
mankind. 

Moreover,  differences  among  the  elect  are 
confined  to  such  as  can  be  tabulated.  Under 
the  heading  "  carnivorous  "  Mr.  Webb  is  to 
be  found,  whilst  his  slightly  better  half  is 
among  the  "  herbivorous."  Even  Mr.  Cole  is 
not  a  lonely  figure,  for  the  card  index  will  direct 
you  to  him  among  the  heretical  schools,  with 

128 


THE         FABIAN         SOCIETY 

cross  references  to  Mr.  Orage  and  syndicalism. 
It  is  felt,  too,  that  if  Mr.  Webb  had  in  youth 
enjoyed  the  educational  advantages  of  a  Fabian 
summer  school  he  might  be  as  sound  on  nuts 
as  he  is  on  figures.  Similarly,  had  Mr.  Cole 
for  a  few  years  sat  patiently  at  the  feet  of  the 
right  people  in  London,  instead  of  consorting 
with  minor  poets  at  Oxford,  the  kink  in  his 
views  might  have  been  straightened.  Influence, 
applied  early  and  often,  counts  for  much,  whether 
one  is  dealing  with  young  persons  or  with  Govern- 
ment departments,  and  with  it  is  linked  the 
habit  of  forgathering  for  the  exchange  of  ideas. 
One  remembers  the  plaint  of  Altiora  Bailey 
in  The  New  Machiavelli,  that  the  new,  crude 
socialists  who  arrived  in  town  after  the  1906 
election  could  not  be  tempted  to  assemble. 
They  were  not  malleable ;  they  were  provincial, 
silent,  and  suspicious.  An  idea  to  a  Fabian  is 
what  a  postage  stamp  is  to  a  philatelist ;  it  is 
something  to  be  collected,  catalogued,  bartered 
for  another,  put  in  a  book  with  a  piece  of 
gummed  paper,  and  quietly  removed  when  a 
better  one  is  found. 

Measurable  eccentricities,  as  has  been  noted, 
are  allowed,  but  one  must  add  that  they  are 
allowed   only   to   those   who   can   afford   them. 

129  I 


ABOUT       IT       AND       ABOUT 

Mr.  Belloc  once  pointed  out  that  Fabianism  aimed 
at  the  socialization  of  the  poor  alone,  and  not 
of  the  whole  community,  but  this  absorption 
with  the  welfare  of  the  proletariat  is  not  to  be 
taken  as  a  sign  of  sympathy  or  love,  for  a  principle 
cannot  feel,  any  more  than  a  type,  or  collection 
of  types,  can  be  loved.  Human  passions,  eruptive 
and  unsystematized,  must  not  be  allowed  to 
sway  in  the  battle  against  dirt,  drink,  waste, 
and  congenital  disease.  Poverty  is  attacked 
because  it  is  a  factor  in  producing  these  things, 
but  no  Fabian  fancies  his  work  will  be  done  when 
the  goal  of  the  "  equalitarian  "  state,  to  which 
Mr.  Webb  is  driving,  has  been  reached.  Every 
adult  and  child  will  then  have  been  put  beyond 
fear  of  hunger,  and  none  will  have  more  than  a 
modest  competence,  but  the  poor,  though  far 
less  poor,  will  still  be  the  poor,  and,  therefore, 
they  will  be  disorderly  and  extravagant.  They 
will  buy  patent  leather  boots  and  silk  blouses 
if  the  Fabian  manager  is  not  there  to  preach, 
even  to  enforce,  the  wearing  of  sandals  and 
cellular  clothing. 

"  Trust  the  people  "  is  the  one  saying  which 
for  ever  condemns  you  in  Fabian  circles  to  be 
classed  as  doctrinaire.  Liberal  and  dotard.  No- 
body is  to  be  trusted,  least  of  all  the  British 

130 


THE        FABIAN         SOCIETY 

workman.  Inspect  him,  make  him  sanitary, 
pay  him  through  a  savings  bank,  house  him  in 
a  civilian  barrack,  ration  him,  keep  him  from 
playing  skittles,  decide  whether  he  is  to  marry 
and,  if  so,  whom,  give  him  a  number,  and  make 
a  careful  note  of  it ;  that  is  the  Fabian  pro- 
gramme. I  have  often  wondered  whether  a 
Fabian  hand  was  not  pulling  some  strings  at 
the  birth  of  Dora  and  during  the  years  of  her 
growth.  Who  knows  ?  Did  some  emissary 
from  Grosvenor  Road  say  a  word  in  season  to 
Lord  Haldane,  who  repeated  it  to  Sir  John 
Simon,  who  passed  it  to  a  permanent  official  ? 
Certainly,  the  depositing  of  the  soldiers'  war 
gratuities  at  the  post  office  was  due  to  Fabian 
inspiration.  It  was  considered  the  only  way  to 
thwart  a  natural  desire  to  get  drunk  on  the 
spot-     Such  is  malism. 

The  equalitarian  State  under  Fabian  managers 
might  have  commanded  a  fair  measure  of  support 
in  past  years  whilst  we  were  still  under  the  spell 
of  something  called  German  efficiency.  It  stands 
no  chance  now.  Security  of  bed  and  board  is 
inadequate  compensation  for  freedom  curtailed 
to  vanishing  point.  Experience  of  the  compara- 
tively mild  discipline  demanded  by  military 
martinets  does  not  predispose  one  to  the  sort 

181 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

of  regimentation  which  Mr.  Webb  and  his  friends 
would  substitute  for  our  present  dependence 
on  the  capitahst.  Faulty,  or  vicious,  as  the 
present  system  may  be,  it  allows  us  our  intervals 
of  liberty,  and  the  man  who  has  just  shed  his 
identity  disc  and  achieved  emancipation  from 
the  sergeant-major  will  have  no  tampering  with 
them.  In  the  industrial  unrest  of  to-day  there 
is  something  not  wholly  material.  "  Men  who 
are  men  again  "  will  not  sell  their  birthright  for 
any  mess  of  pottage,  let  alone  lentil  pottage. 
Some  writers  for  whom  I  have  the  highest 
respect,  among  them  Mr.  E.  T.  Raymond,  have 
likened  the  Fabians  to  the  Girondins,  but  I 
am  obliged  to  disagree.  Surely  the  strongest 
characteristic  of  the  Girondins  was  love  of 
freedom.  Their  only  other  fixed  idea  was  a 
furious  patriotism,  or,  if  you  will,  nationalism. 
For  the  rest  they  were  sadly  deficient  in  principles, 
and  in  their  lives  liberty  tended  to  licence.  The 
true  Fabians,  on  the  other  hand,  although  their 
women  may  for  hygienic  reasons  abjure  corsets, 
can  be  correctly  described  as  strait-laced.  They 
have  the  "  painful  mind  "  of  Robespierre,  with 
all  his  beliefs  in  disciplining  the  mob,  in  tart 
morality,  in  "  golden  mediocrity  "  as  a  political 
and    economic    aim.      With    him,    they    dislike 

132 


THE        FABIAN         SOCIETY 

the  swagger  of  red  caps  and  the  revolutionary 
tutoiement  which  has  for  modern  equivalent 
the  comrade-calling  speech  of  the  stump  orator. 
Of  course,  it  will  be  objected  to  such  a  comparison 
that  the  Fabian  is  a  gentle  and  moderate  being 
who  would  turn  sick  at  once  if  an  electrically 
driven  guillotine  were  set  up  in  Trafalgar 
Square  to-morrow.  Quite  true,  but  Robespierre 
resigned  his  judgeship  at  Arras  rather  than 
condemn  a  man  to  death.  His  later  career 
simply  proves  that  nothing  is  as  pitiless  as  a 
principle.  One  may  be  sure  that  a  Fabian 
tribunal  would  be  lenient  to  a  man  accused  of 
singing  "  God  Save  the  King,"  having  shares 
in  a  railway  company  or  having  voted  for  Lord 
Hugh  Cecil,  but  would  one  feel  one's  neck 
equally  safe  if  one  were  a  possible  instrument  for 
transgressing  the  latest  decree  of  the  eugenists, 
or  had  been  informed  against  for  smoking  a 
foul  pipe  in  one's  bedroom  ?  Judgment  would 
be  given  without  animosity  ;  the  sentence  would 
be  entirely  on  principle.  I  would  rather  be  a 
profiteer  in  a  hungry  crowd,  and  trust  my  Ufe 
to  luck  or  a  joke. 

Busier  than  ever  in  arranging  the  affairs  of 
others,  and  flushed  by  certain  recent  successes, 
the  Fabians  cannot  be  expected  to  realize  that 

183 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

their  day  is  past.  They  have  probably  never 
felt  more  alive  than  they  do  now.  In  fact,  as 
they  ramify  into  committees  and  enquiries  and 
the  very  offices  of  Whitehall,  they  may  be 
excused  for  a  notion  that  they  are  the  only 
people  of  substantial  importance  in  Britain 
in  this  year  of  grace.  Like  delusions  have  been 
cherished  by  others.  Mr.  L.  P.  Jacks  once  wrote 
of  the  contempt  which  ghosts  entertain  for 
human  beings.  Ghosts,  he  said,  were  sceptical 
of  our  reality,  and  supported  their  doubts  by 
pointing  to  the  triviality  of  alleged  communi- 
cations from  our  world,  whilst  even  the  most 
credulous  admitted  that  our  intelligence  was 
limited  and  our  antics  were  revolting.  So  it  is 
with  the  Fabians.  They  see  the  mass  of  man- 
kind as  trivial,  stupid,  and  absurd,  and  with 
no  more  desire  to  be  trained  than  unbroken 
colts  in  a  field.  Entirely  on  principle,  they 
lecture  us  from  time  to  time  on  our  follies.  Then, 
they  go  home  to  dine  on  principles  and  such 
creature  comforts  as  their  principles  allow  them. 


184 


THE    WAR    POETS 

IN  the  years  between  the  death  of  Tennyson 
and  the  beginning  of  the  war  we  were 
repeatedly  told  by  all  the  academically  minded 
that  England  had  ceased  to  produce  great  poetry. 
They  were  not  content  with  saying  we  had  no 
great  poets ;  they  invariably  added  a  rider 
that  the  littleness  of  the  times  prevented  a  poet 
from  being  great.  For  a  few  years  there  was, 
indeed,  depression.  One  had  gloomy  satis- 
faction in  noting  how  Mr.  Dobson  supported 
the  pessimistic  view  by  writing  perfectly  turned 
verses  on  antique  trivialities,  and  the  genius 
of  Francis  Thompson,  which  would  have  upset 
all  current  criticism,  was  conveniently  left  undis- 
covered. Such  a  state  of  affairs  could  not  last 
long.  New  men  began  to  write,  and,  stranger 
still,  a  new  public  began  to  read  their  work 
with  an  admiration  which  the  faint  praise  of 
the  professors  could  not  quell.  A  shop  was 
opened  for  the  sale  of  their  books,  and,  I  regret 
to  say,  there  was  a  boom  in  poems. 

Superior  people  who  had  sat  at  the  feet  of 
Arnold    or    stuffed    themselves    with    Spencer, 

135 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

would  probably  have  died  protesting  that  we 
were  decadent  and  could  produce  nothing  that 
would  last,  had  not  war  caused  them  suddenly 
to  recant.  From  study  of  dead  letters  sometimes 
comes  a  certain  hostility  to  life,  and  the  majority 
of  dons  and  doctors  of  philosophy  seem  to  be 
more  bloodthirsty  than  the  rest  of  human  kind. 
In  the  last  years  of  peace,  we,  as  a  race,  had  been 
growing  in  gentleness  and  consideration  towards 
the  weaker  elements  in  creation.  The  natural 
world  was  still  beautiful.  Birds  sang,  flowers 
bloomed,  lovers  walked  in  the  lanes,  the  hills 
stood ;  but  they  who  professed  culture  said 
there  was  no  "  immediate  stimulus  "  to  poetry. 
Was  ever  greater  nonsense  talked  or  written  ? 
Then,  at  the  first  report  of  a  gun,  some  literary 
wirepuller  leaps  to  his  study  table  with  a  tag 
from  "  Coriolanus  "  to  declare  that  peace  was 
"  mulled,  deaf,  sleepy,  insensible,"  and  war 
was  "  spritely,  waking,  audible,  and  full  of 
vent."  All  take  up  the  baying.  The  new 
Osborn  judgement  is  pronounced ;  the  young 
men,  for  some  obscure  reason  to  which  history 
gives  no  clue,  are  called  Elizabethans.  The 
"  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life  "  figures  in  all  the 
anthologies  which  appear  to  celebrate  carnage. 
Here  was  the   outburst  of   "  national  energy " 

186 


THE        WAR        POETS 

for  which  the  Muses  were  said  to  have  been 
waiting.  From  the  study  window  there  did 
seem  to  be  worse  things  than  war. 

So  much  for  the  mentors.  The  bards  them- 
selves rose  to  the  occasion  in  various  ways. 
Mr.  Cannan  wrote  on  the  spirit  of  England, 
Mr.  Chappell,  of  Bath  railway  station,  delivered 
a  frankly  abusive  hymn  of  hate,  Mr.  W.  L. 
Courtney  struck  for  life  and  liberty  in  the 
Daily  Telegraphy  and  Mr.  Begbie  thanked  God 
for  something  or  other.  To  many,  however, 
even  amongst  those  who  went  most  quickly  into 
print,  one  can  still  feel  gratitude.  Mr.  Hewlett, 
for  example,  did  good  service  by  somehow 
making  the  geographical  fact  that  England  is 
an  island  seem  extraordinarily  jolly,  even  though 
one  did  not  expect  the  enemy's  air  force  to 
respect  our  sea-girt  security.  For  others,  such 
as  Mr.  Hodgson,  who  refrained  from  taking 
part  in  the  chorus,  words  of  thanks  are  inade- 
quate ;  but  their  number  was  very  small. 
The  boom  in  poetry  reached  unprecedented  size. 
Mr.  Birrell  made  himself  disliked  by  calling  for 
a  truce  of  pens. 

Publication  of  Rupert  Brooke's  sonnets  was 
held  to  strengthen  the  case  for  those  who  had 
prophesied   that   in   war   the   spirit   of  English 

187 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

poetry  would  find  itself.  The  writer's  death 
spread  his  fame,  for  the  academical  school  of 
reviewers  cannot  bear  to  see  a  star  until  it  has 
set,  and  when  the  poet  was  dead  they  could 
feel  that  he  was  almost  one  of  themselves. 
Some  of  his  lines  inspired  by  the  war  have 
incontestable  beauty,  but  of  others,  had  fate 
spared  him,  he  might  have  repented.  Anyhow, 
it  was  absurd  to  write  as  though  war  had  made 
him.  He  who  had  written  "  The  Great  Lover  " 
was  in  need  of  no  shrill  clarions  to  arouse  him, 
and  one  cannot  help  feeling  that  the  artist  in 
him  would  have  revolted  against  turgid  applause 
given  to  work  which  could  be  quoted  in  the  daily 
press  as  of  "topical  interest." 

Since  then,  the  Muse  in  Arms  has  expressed 
herself  in  many  ways.  At  first  there  was  a 
revival  of  the  "  Tommy  "  school  of  versifying 
which  treated  the  soldier  as  a  splendid  scoundrel 
who  spoke  queer  dialects  and  was  mildly  blas- 
phemous. It  touched  on  war  as  on  a  bank 
holiday  outing,  and  advertised  the  Army  as  the 
one  part  of  our  social  system  in  which  a  man 
could  be  truly  free  and  would  have  unlimited 
drinks  to  drown  his  memory  of  a  wretched  past 
in  civilian  clothes.  Doubtless,  the  writers  were 
well-intentioned,  and,  like  the  designers  of  posters, 

138 


THE        WAR        POETS 

may  have  been  of  assistance  to  the  recruiting 
sergeant.  They  may  have  been  under  no  false 
impression  as  to  the  artistic  value  of  their  work, 
but  they  fell  into  several  glaring  errors.  I 
once  heard  a  French  soldier  explaining  to  his 
female  friends  that  he  did  not  really  care  to  be 
called  the  hairy  one,  and  there  were  a  good  many 
in  the  Kitchener  armies  who  were  not  exactly 
flattered  by  the  description  some  rhymers  gave 
of  them.  They  did  not  say  much,  but  I 
believe  they  considered  that  the  tradition 
of  "  The  Private  of  the  Buffs  "  had  had  its 
day. 

The  best  that  can  be  said  for  the  "  Tommy  " 
school  is  that  it  only  endured  for  a  month  or 
two.  Later  verses  on  the  war  were  mainly 
written  from  the  front,  and  were  in  a  very 
different  tone.  There  were  poets  in  all  the 
forces,  combatant  and  non-combatant,  and  some 
of  what  they  wrote  is  almost  certainly  imperish- 
able ;  but  that  they  would  have  been  mute 
or  composed  inferior  work,  save  for  experience 
of  active  service,  is  unlikely.  The  verse  that 
came  from  the  battlefields  was,  however,  re- 
markable in  more  ways  than  one.  It  adminis- 
tered a  wholesome  shock  to  those  who  had 
prated   of  joyous,   careless   boys   seeking  glory 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

with  songs  on  their  hps.  The  soldier  poets  were 
anything  but  what  they  had  been  expected  to 
be.  By  turns,  they  were  sad  or  savage,  but 
always,  in  some  way  or  another,  at  war  against 
war.  At  moments  one  inclines  to  praise  even 
the  crudest  of  them,  but  they  who  wrote  unspar- 
ingly wished  to  be  read  without  sparing.  It  is 
the  duty  of  a  bomber  to  throw  bombs,  but 
throwing  bombs  is  not  poetry.  Neither  is 
throwing  rhymed  lines  to  be  called  poetry,  and 
if  the  lines  are  called  vers  libre  because  they 
neither  rhyme  nor  scan,  they  are  apt  to  be  still 
less  like  poetry.  Even  throwing  trench-mud 
at  the  white  waistcoat  of  the  obese  chairman 
of  a  "  Get-on- with-the- War  "  meeting  was  not 
necessarily  poetry,  though  it  had  much  else  to 
recommend  it  as  spiritual  exercise  and  bodily 
relief. 

Factories  of  munitions  began  to  close  soon 
after  the  Armistice,  and  it  would  have  been 
well  had  there  been  also  a  halt  in  the  making  of 
certain  brands  of  verse.  A  year  or  two  might 
have  been  spent  in  thought,  until  the  emotions 
of  the  past  could  be  recollected  in  that  tranquillity 
which  Wordsworth  advocated  for  successful 
composition.  Instead,  there  has  been  a  steady 
flow  of  little  books  containing  poetised  memories 

140 


THE        WAR        POETS 

and  impressions  of  the  war.  In  the  past  there 
were  truths  which  no  soldier  could  put  into 
stark  prose  ;  they  had  to  be  disguised  in  a  literary 
form  which  to  the  majority  at  home  seemed  a 
vehicle  for  exaggerations,  bizarre  fancies,  or 
everything  except  reality.  One  had,  therefore, 
the  strange  spectacle  of  journalists  giving  the 
world  romance  in  the  ordered  columns  of  a 
prosaic  newspaper,  whilst  cold  verities  could 
only  be  dished  up  with  a  majuscule  to  garnish 
every  line.  The  old  excuse  has  disappeared. 
What  a  man  has  to  write,  he  can  now  write 
plainly.  Further,  would  not  a  return  to 
Dryden's  theory  that  giving  delight  is  poesy's 
chief  function  be  welcome  ?  When  a  poet 
becomes  oratorical,  satirical,  or  simply  in- 
formative, is  he  not  trespassing  on  grounds 
which  do  not  properly  belong  to  him  ? 

Because,  to  use  Mr.  Bottomley's  phrase,  he 
has  failed  "  to  churn  out "  an  ode  on  peace,  a 
silly  attack  has  been  made  on  the  Poet  Laureate, 
and  one  has  heard  sneers  because  he  had  no 
verbal  felicities  with  which  to  greet  the  changing 
fortunes  of  our  late  campaigns.  Had  a  certain 
section  of  the  Press  and  public  had  its  way, 
he  would  undoubtedly  have  "  gone  out "  with 
the    Prime    Minister    to  ^whose    fine    taste    his 

141 


ABOUT        IT       AND       ABOUT 

appointment  was  due,  and  the  mythical  butt  of 
sack  would  have  been  awarded  by  acclamation 
to  Touchstone  of  the  Daily  Mail,  It  can  be 
readily  understood  that  standing  silent  on  a 
peak  of  Darien  is  not  a  habit  admired  by 
those  who  prefer  headlines  to  literature  and 
find  wisdom's  last  word  in  the  Major's  late 
wire ;  but  from  the  rest  one  looks  for  a 
higher  standard.  Probably,  there  is  no  poet 
in  the  land,  from  humblest  to  greatest,  who 
does  not  in  theory  honour  the  reticence 
of  Dr.  Bridges,  but  there  is  yet  something 
else  to  demand.  Cannot  his  example  be 
followed  ? 

Verses  of  occasions,  even  of  great  occasions, 
are  not  a  poet's  business.  He  is  under  no 
obligation  whatever  to  sing  either  of  the  sorrows 
of  war  or  of  the  triumph  of  a  victorious  peace. 
If  he  is  impelled  to  write  of  these  things,  let 
him  write,  and  then  let  him  put  in  a  drawer 
what  he  has  written,  and  keep  it  there  for  at 
least  twelve  months.  If,  by  the  end  of  that 
time,  he  has  not  decided  to  use  it  for  lighting  a 
pipe,  it  will  be  worth  his  while  to  publish  it. 
What  our  poets  have  to  say  may  be  much 
to  the  point,  and  they  may  have  the  means 
to  infuse   art   into  their    message ;     but    good 

142 


THE        WAR        POETS 

work  does  not  spoil  with  keeping.  I  am  not 
afraid  to  face  a  year  without  new  verse,  for 
I  believe  there  would  be  a  reward  of  poetry 
at  the  end.  The  boom,  by  the  way,  is  all  but 
finished. 


143 


KINGS    IN    EXILE 

WHEN  Candida  met  the  six  kings  dining 
at  the  hotel  in  Venice,  and  had  given 
alms  to  one  of  them,  he  was  moved  to  express 
wonder  at  the  portent.  It  was  left  to  Martin, 
his  phlegmatic  friend,  to  assure  him  that  the 
honour  of  their  company  had  been  a  bagatelle 
unworthy  of  attention,  and  that  there  were  some 
millions  of  men  on  earth  more  to  be  pitied  than 
the  deposed  monarchs.  What  may  be  the  exact 
number  of  princes  now  wandering  about  Europe 
or  resting  in  retirement,  I  do  not  know.  There 
are  two  who  have  been  emperors,  whilst  Greece, 
Portugal,  Bavaria,  Saxony,  Wurtemburg,  and 
Bulgaria,  provide  a  half-dozen  to  match  the 
tale  of  Candide's  fellow  guests.  The  list  can 
be  almost  indefinitely  prolonged  if  one  adds  to 
it  the  motley  throng  of  minor  sovereigns,  heirs 
apparent  and  presumptive,  grand  dukes  and 
pretenders,  not  to  speak  of  their  women  folk. 
Some  of  the  best  hotels  in  Switzerland  should  be 
able  to  advertise  attractions  at  least  equal  to  those 
which  amazed  Voltaire's  ingenuous  hero  in  the 
Venetian  week  of  carnival.     That  they  would 

144 


KINGS        IN        EXILE 

reap  rich  reward  is  certain.     Seeing  the  hons 
feed  is  an  entertainment  which  never  palls. 

Not  many  have  Martin's  fund  of  sound  sense. 
Contact  with  royalty,  even  if  it  be  only  with  an 
ex-prince  of  Thunder-ten-Tronckh,  would  seem 
cheap  at  any  price  business  management  might 
exact  for  it,  especially  if  the  stump  of  a  cigar 
with  the  impress  of  a  royal  heel,  or  some  such 
souvenir,  were  guaranteed.  It  must  grieve  the 
true  democrat  to  know  that  this  kind  of  snobbery 
still  exists.  But  let  him  comfort  himself.  Only 
the  very  youngest  in  this  country  were  not  born 
in  an  age  of  rampant  royalism.  If,  in  the  Victorian 
period,  it  was  not  actually  held  that  kings  could 
do  no  wrong,  it  was  generally  taught  that  at 
least  those  of  them  who  were  related  to  our  late 
queen  did  do  no  wrong,  and,  as  few  of  them  could 
not  claim  cousinship  or  nearer  kin,  the  old  doctrine 
was  re-established  with  but  a  slight  alteration. 
Then,  and  for  some  years  afterwards,  the  crowned 
heads  of  Europe,  with  their  families,  were  exhi- 
bited to  us  as  often  as  possible,  and  an  imposing 
show  they  sometimes  made.  Men  trained  in 
republican  principles  were  heard  to  admit  that 
a  black-coated  president  in  such  an  assembly 
would  have  been  as  incongruous  as  a  barn-door 
fowl  among  peacocks,  and  could  have  brought 

145  K 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

no  credit  on  his  country.  The  world  was 
mesmerized.  London  sightseers  do  not  cheer 
from  motives  of  deep  poHcy,  yet,  when  Germany 
had  become  a  pohtically  unpopular  nation,  a 
Hohenzollern  was  still  given  a  rapturous  recep- 
tion. Now,  when  a  black  coat  seems  more 
reputable  wear  than  several  brilliant  uniforms, 
we  can  be  said  to  be  mending  our  opinions,  but 
the  threadbare  fabric  of  our  old  imaginings  is 
still  visible  between  the  patches. 

A  strange  remnant  of  our  reverence  for 
royalty  as  royalty  is  seen  in  the  English  demand 
for  hanging  the  Kaiser,  or,  at  least,  for  bringing 
him  to  public  trial.  We  pay  him  the  tribute 
of  believing  that  he  remains  a  person  of  impor- 
tance. Abroad  they  have  lost  this  delusion. 
In  Paris,  whilst  he  was  the  "  All  Highest," 
Wilhelm's  blood  flowing  in  the  Rue  de  la  Roquette 
would  have  gratified  the  multitude,  yet  would 
have  seemed  to  desecrate  a  spot  made  memorable 
by  so  many  criminals  of  a  less  offensive  type. 
But  interest  in  Wilhelm  ceased  with  his  fall. 
Over  there,  perhaps,  they  have  shrewder  ideas 
than  we  have  of  the  value  of  public  punishment 
for  such  offenders.  Did  not  their  own  imperialists 
make  St.  Helena  a  shrine,  whilst  at  Chislehurst 
they  could  only  find  a  mausoleum  ?     Looking 

146 


KINGS        IN        EXILE 

to  Germany,  there  is  the  same  lesson  for  us  in 
another  shape.  Having  talked  glibly  for  months 
of  the  new  German  Republic,  we  were  sharply 
reminded  at  Versailles  that  the  German  Empire 
still  exists.  An  Empire  without  an  Emperor 
may  appear  at  first  sight  somewhat  like  the 
play  of  Hamlet  without  the  Prince  of  Denmark, 
but,  after  all,  it  is  only  the  royal  ghost  that  has 
been  eliminated  from  the  tragedy.  Our  late 
enemies  cling  to  what  they  think  useful  in 
their  past.  They  make  no  mistake  about  a 
Hohenzollern    being    indispensable. 

In  our  desire  to  see  justice  done  to  the  terrible 
War  Lord,  we  have  unduly  flattered  the  wood- 
cutter of  Amerongen.  Otherwise,  the  kings  have 
for  the  most  part  been  allowed  to  depart  with 
commendable  absence  of  fuss,  and  cries  of  hatred 
for  them  have  been  almost  as  rare  as  gushes  of 
regret.  Their  old  subjects  have  kept  their  heads, 
and  Hapsburgs,  Coburgs,  and  the  rest,  have, 
consequently,  been  allowed  to  keep  theirs.  The 
Russian  murders  break  a  good  record,  and  lead 
one  to  ask  whether  violence  of  revolution  will 
not  lead  there  and  elsewhere  to  violence  of 
reaction.  In  countries  under  Bolshevik  rule, 
the  laudator  temporis  acti  is,  of  course,  given 
a  magnificent  chance  to  set  people  sighing  for 

147 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

the  comparatively  gentle  methods  of  an  Ivan 
the  Terrible.     Even  in  lands  governed  on  the 
most    approved    principles,    reaction    sometimes 
seems  faintly  possible.     In  France,  for  instance* 
M.  Leon  Daudet  and  M.  Maurras  hint  daily  of 
the    crown    as   the    symbol    of  order,    honesty, 
and  strength,  and  their  readers  are  often  carried 
away  as  far  as  to  take  a  piece  of  chalk  to  write 
"  Vive  le  Roi  "  on  the  next  wall  they  happen  to 
pass.  It  is  so  easy  to  find  the  faults  in  a  democratic 
government.     Where  the  smallest  bribe  cannot 
be  given  without  fear  that  it  will  be  common 
property  in  a  week,  where  there  is  no  Bastille 
to  place  the  virtuous  individual  whom  every- 
body has  forgotten  to  corrupt,  there  is  always  a 
crop  of  scandals.     If  they  did  not  exist,  they 
would  have  to  be  invented  because  they  are  all 
so  highly  probable.     If  M.  Daudet  and  General 
Page   Croft  have   ever   been   brought  together, 
what  a  lot  they  must  have  told   each  other ! 
Since  the   days  of  King  Wamba,   there  can 
have  been  no  part  of  Europe  where  good  people 
have   not   met,    shaken   their   heads,    and   said 
they  did  not  know  to  what  things  were  coming, 
giving  their   voices   just  that   inflection   which 
promises  that  they  know  rather  more  than  they 
care  to  own.     A  crown,  if  it  happen  to  be  un- 

148 


KINGS        IN        EXILE 

occupied,  is  a  rallying  point  for  them.  The 
time  has  gone  by  when  a  German  princeling 
was  automatically  provided  for  every  vacancy, 
and  there  are  more  republics  than  monarchies 
in  the  world  to-day,  but  it  does  not  follow  we 
have  heard  the  last  of  royalist  plots.  Against 
their  success  the  chief  barriers  are  the  characters 
of  the  gentlemen  who  sooner  or  later  would 
have  to  be  brought  forward  to  perform  the 
leading  parts.  The  one  word  which  stems  the 
Continental  Monarchist's  tide  of  talk  is  the  name 
of  his  rightful  liege.  He  has  been  sketching  for 
you  the  ideal  ruler,  the  "  patriot  king,"  as  seen 
against  a  crowd  of  sanguinary  adventurers  or 
chuckleheaded  deputies,  and  you  bring  him  to 
pause  by  mentioning  a  person  whose  only  title 
to  regard  is  his  place  in  that  international 
directory  of  the  cemeteries,  the  Almanack  de 
Gotha.  The  mere  pretender,  indeed,  may  be  in 
a  better  position  than  the  dethroned  sovereign. 
If  there  be  many  who  know  not  Joseph,  it  may 
be  distinctly  to  Joseph's  advantage. 

To  what  point  royal  obscurity  should  be 
carried  is,  however,  matter  for  debate.  Some 
approve  a  revision  of  the  Almanack  de  Gotka  to 
include  the  new  postal  addresses  of  several 
regal  personages  who  have  lately  changed  abodes, 

149 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

or,  if  that  be  undersirable,  the  most  convenient 
poste  restante.  One  of  their  late  majesties  was 
last  reported  driving  round  and  round  a  forest, 
he,  unlike  the  Shakesperean  Richard,  having 
obtained  a  horse,  and  even  a  cab,  in  exchange 
for  his  kingdom.  Others  are  said  to  be  willing 
to  reside  anywhere  out  of  sight  of  German 
territory ;  but  such  information  is  almost  too 
discreetly  vague.  Their  own  people,  particularly 
those  of  the  loyalist  party,  may  not  regret  the 
veil  assumed  by  these  august  or  serene  travellers, 
but  between  Bayswater  and  Tooting  Bee  there 
are  braver  hearts.  Already,  I  fancy,  they  are 
willing  to  forget  misunderstandings  begotten 
of  the  war.  They  remember  that  the  Princess 
Hildegarde  of  Ruritania,  of  whom  so  many 
photographs  were  published  a  few  years  ago, 
must  now  be  of  an  age  to  marry,  and  they  tell 
themselves  that  she,  descended  from  our  own 
early  Georges,  is  almost  half  English.  Once, 
they  had  a  framed  postcard  of  her  on  the  mantel- 
shelf, but  it  was  removed  when  her  father  made 
the  mistake  of  his  life  by  drawing  the  sword 
against  Britain  and  democracy.  Previously,  she 
had  seemed  almost  one  of  the  family,  and  now 
they  wish  they  had  temporarily  turned  her  picture 
to  the   wall,   in  the   way   once   traditional  for 

150 


KINGS        IN        EXILE 

erring  daughters,  instead  of  banishing  it  so 
thoroughly  that  it  was  lost  in  the  next  year's 
spring  cleaning.  In  Switzerland,  on  the  door- 
step of  the  Hotel  des  Rois  en  Exil,  an  enter- 
prising  photographer   even   now   awaits   her. 

Swiss  and  Dutch  are  hospitable  people,  yet 
they  complain  of  a  surplus  of  itinerant  royalties. 
If  by  the  end  of  the  next  decade  half  of  them  are 
not  in  our  home  counties,  it  will  be  surprising. 
We  are  ready  to  hang  them  or  to  kiss  their 
hands,  but  we  cannot  get  it  out  of  our  heads 
that  they  must  have  abnormal  attentions.  Like 
Samuel  Pepys,  we  expect  them  to  bring  us  good 
weather.  That  their  own  subjects  have  expelled 
them  as  undesirables  makes  no  difference.  The 
society  journalist  still  delights  to  record  how  a 
horse  show  or  tennis  tournament  has  been 
visited  by  the  "  King  of  Portugal,"  though  the 
cheery  young  man  of  whom  he  writes  has  no 
more  claim  to  the  title  than  has  Mr.  Snowden 
to  be  styled  the  Honourable  Member  for  Black- 
burn. Trust  in  the  universal  benignity  of  princes 
may  have  passed,  but  a  lively  interest  in  them 
remains,  and  the  society  journal  keeps  it  alive 
with  pages  on  which  Gertie  Golightly  of  the 
Gaiety  simpers  cheek  by  jowl  with  His  or  Her 
Highness  of  nowhere  in  particular.     In  no  other 

151 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

country  of  this  hemisphere  is  there  the  absence  of 
humour  which  permits  this  type  of  pubhcation 
to  flourish.  The  French  proverb  has  it  that  all 
the  dead  are  not  in  the  tomb,  and  long  ago  the 
wits  of  the  boulevards  laughed  Wilhelm  into 
limbo.  They  will  never  understand  the  yearning 
of  John  Bull  to  raise  him  high  as  Haman.  Nor 
will  they  ever  fathom  the  mentality  of  Mrs. 
Bull,  his  respectable  spouse,  who  divides  her 
devotions  so  equally  between  crowns,  courts, 
and  corybantes. 


152 


MR.    BERNARD    SHAW 

METTERNICH  once  spoke  of  Canning  as 
a  malevolent  meteor  hurled  by  divine 
Providence  upon  Europe.  In  a  far  part  of  the 
country  I  have  a  friend  who  for  the  last  five 
and  twenty  years  has  held  a  somewhat  similar 
view  of  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  although  doubting 
whether  the  force  which  launched  the  eminent 
publicist  on  us  may  not  have  been  infernal. 
Why  such  strong  language  should  have  been 
used,  even  by  an  enraged  Teuton,  of  a  statesman 
who  can  now  only  be  imagined  as  wearing  a 
halo  of  mildness  in  an  aroma  of  respectability, 
cannot  be  easily  understood.  Equally,  it  is 
hard  to  see  why  Mr.  Shaw  should  still  in  some 
quarters  enjoy  a  reputation  for  being  dangerous, 
and  be  allowed  to  live  on  it  as  on  an  unearned 
increment.  "  Unearned  "  is  perhaps  rather  a 
harsh  term,  but  let  me  explain.  In  the  'nineties 
or  thereabouts  it  may  have  been  right  to  regard 
him  as  a  "  revolutionary  writer,"  so  any  notoriety 
he  then  gained  was  honestly  acquired.  It  became 
his  capital.  Despite  really  conscientious  efforts 
he  has  added  nothing  to  it,  has,  indeed,  lost 

153 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

a  part  of  it,  and  is  now  existing  on  its  diminishing 
interest.  It  must  be  left  to  some  pundit  of 
Socialism  to  decide  whether  this  state  of  affairs 
is  either  moral  or  economic,  asking  his  pardon 
in  advance  for  here  using  two  words  which  to 
him  will  sound  synonymous. 

As  Mr.  Shaw  has  said,  "  the  novelties  of  one 
generation  are  only  the  resuscitated  fashions 
of  the  generation  before  last,"  and  in  the  next, 
I  would  add,  they  are  often  tiresome.  The  "  Life 
Force,"  when  Mr.  Shaw  began  to  write  about  it 
in  The  Irrational  Knot,  seemed  a  tough  customer, 
a  bull  amidst  the  domestic  crockery,  but  it  is 
now  the  tame  cat  of  all  the  best  suburbs.  When 
Mr.  Shaw  started  to  rend  the  sheets  of  the 
double  bed,  there  were  plenty  who  shrieked 
sacrilege,  but  to-day  every  one  of  my  maiden 
aunts  shares  his  abhorrence  of  that  piece  of 
furniture.  Beyond  question,  he  has  influenced 
his  coevals.  Look  at  all  the  retired  professional 
men  and  elderly  Anglo-Indians  who,  when  their 
physicians  failed  to  heal  their  gout  and  livers, 
hearkened  to  his  exposures  of  medical  humbug 
and  followed  Mrs.  Eddy.  Again,  take  the 
Superman.  I  admit  that  being  incurably  a 
man  without  a  prefix  I  used  to  be  nervous  of 
that.     Perhaps    I    am    only    less    fearful    now. 

154 


MR.        BERNARD        SHAW 

Mr.  Shaw  called  for  the  Superman.  Then,  the 
whole  ha'penny  press  yelled  for  the  Superman. 
You  all  know  how  nobly  the  Geddes  family 
responded,  and  are  still  responding,  to  the  cry 
for   their   services. 

In  the  stage  directions  for  the  most  brilliant 
of  his  comedies  Mr.  Shaw  wrote  that  because  of 
its  lack  of  upholstery  the  hall  of  the  Ptolemies 
would  appear  bare  and  ridiculous  to  a  rich  English- 
man. Five  minutes  later  Caesar  was  testily 
ordering  a  chair,  because  even  the  most  Shavian 
Roman  of  them  all  did  not  relish  sitting  on  the 
floor.  We  have  got  beyond  that  sort  of  thing. 
There  is  no  need  to  go  to  ancient  Egypt  for 
lessons  in  simple  living.  For  a  small  charge 
the  underground  railway  will  take  you  to  see 
the  Shavian  Englishman  at  Golders  Green  sitting 
without  a  murmur  on  anything  but  a  cushioned 
sofa.  Considering  how  many  worthy  people 
Mr.  Shaw  has  influenced  in  one  way  and  another, 
it  would  be  foolish  to  deny  that,  like  Ruskin, 
Carlyle,  and  his  own  Father  Keegan,  he  has  done 
something  to  improve  the  mind  and  to  raise 
the  tone  of  his  age.  For  all  this  he  has  neither 
asked  nor  received  the  credit  he  deserves. 
Instead,  we  are  still  told  to  think  of  him  as 
subversive    and    shocking,    but    one    questions 

155 


ABOUT       IT       AND       ABOUT 

whether  even  the  dramatic  critics  or  the  censor 
can  be  deceived  again.  Years  have  elapsed 
since  he  gave  them  their  last  stage  fright.  When 
Elizabeth  Dolittle  said  her  naughty  word,  a 
good  many  recalled  how  in  their  lost  youth  it 
had  been  classical  at  our  ancient  seats  of  learning, 
and  speculated  as  to  how  soon  it  would  pass 
into  the  vocabularies  of  Somerville  and  Newnham. 
It  is  understood  that  they  did  not  have  long  to 
wait. 

Perhaps  the  best  explanation  of  Mr.  Shaw 
as  he  is  can  be  found  by  recognizing  that  he  has 
got  into  the  writing  habit.  A  story  is  told  of 
Mr.  Chesterton  that  he  refused,  despite  his 
splendid  physical  equipment,  to  be  a  special 
constable,  giving  as  his  reason  that,  in  the  event 
of  civil  trouble,  he  could  imagine  no  revolution 
which  he  would  not  prefer  to  the  Government. 
That,  of  course,  was  not  to  say  he  would  be 
heart  and  soul  with  every  popular  outbreak ; 
it  would  be  a  choice  of  evils.  Mr.  Shaw  is  in 
exactly  the  opposite  position.  He  must  have 
disliked  every  government  under  which  he  has 
lived,  but  I  cannot  imagine  a  revolution  he  would 
not  dislike  more  than  any  of  them.  Writing 
matter  that  was  once  revolutionary  is,  in  conse- 
quence,   more    congenial    to    his    nature    than 

156 


MR.        BERNARD        SHAW 

renovating  his  programme.  At  the  Methodist 
school  in  Dubhn  he  may  have  heard  sung  the 
hymn  which  affirms  that  doing  ends  in  death, 
and  there  is,  anyhow,  the  Puritan  in  him  to 
make  him  set  the  merit  of  faith  above  works. 
In  theologians  such  belief  may,  or  may  not,  be 
excellent,  but  it  is  a  bar  to  efficiency  in  those 
engaged  in  promoting  revolutions  or  anything 
else  except  companies. 

Seven    or    eight    years    ago,    Mr.    Holbrook 
Jackson,  one  of  his  warmest  admirers,  remarked 
that  Mr.  Shaw  had  for  twenty  years  been  saying 
the  selfsame  things.     He  has   continued  saying 
them,  and  it  appears  to  me  that  a  person  with 
such  a  passion  for  repetition   must  forfeit  his 
claims  to  be  treated  as  a  revolutionary  writer. 
To    be   revolutionary    one    must    revolve,    even 
if  only   on   one's    own   axis,    and,    though   Mr. 
Shaw  has  been  accused  of  standing  on  his  head, 
he  has  never  been  taxed  with  facing  both  ways. 
By  any  just  use  of  words  he  must  be  called  a 
stationary  writer.     Once,  he  wrote  that  "  when 
a  man  has  anything  to  tell  in  this  world,  the 
difficulty  is  not  to  make  him  tell  it,  but  to  prevent 
him  from  telling  it  too  often,"  and  to  this  difficulty 
he  has  succumbed.     By  never  keeping  his  birth- 
days, he  may  have  retained  a  youthful  spirit, 

157 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

but  he  has  missed  much.  He  has  avoided  growing 
old  with  his  contemporaries,  but  he  has  missed 
keeping  young  with  the  generation  which  fol- 
lowed them.  He  has  missed  realizing  how  much 
of  his  lecturing  has  become  superfluous,  because 
those  who  came  into  the  world  after  him  seized 
at  a  glance  what  he  was  laboriously  learning  all 
through  his  twenties.  Finally,  he  has  missed 
his  exit. 

Socrates  was  poisoned  by  the  Athenians  when 
they  had  had  enough  of  him,  and  Aristides  was 
ostracized  when  he  had  become  a  bore.  Mr. 
Shaw  has  suggested  the  lethal  chamber  for  those 
whose  eccentricities  have  become  unbearable  to  the 
commonwealth.  I  deprecate  extreme  measures, 
but  agree  that  Mr.  Shaw  is  sometimes  annoying. 
As  long  as  he  played  the  part  of  gad-fly,  he 
merited  all  encouragement,  but  the  temptation 
has  lately  been  to  think  of  him  rather  as  the 
bluebottle  against  the  window  pane,  which 
exasperates  but  is  ineffective.  His  chafing,  for 
instance,  against  the  beef-eating,  game-playing, 
habits  of  the  normal,  "  healthy,"  Englishman, 
is  monotonous.  In  the  first  place  he  knows 
well  that  normality  is  always  in  a  minority. 
Secondly,  the  class  he  attacks  had  good  mettle 
in  it,  as  is  proved  by  it  never  producing  a  passably 

158 


MR.        BERNARD        SHAW 

good  waiter.  Mr.  Shaw's  war  against  sentimen- 
tality has,  also,  lasted  too  long.  Sentimentality 
is  not  a  bad  thing  in  its  way.  Mr.  Shaw  has  no 
need  of  it,  yet  it  may  make  duller  people  do 
the  things  of  which  he  approves.  It  is  a  target 
for  wit  on  the  stage,  but  "  any  fool  can  make  any 
audience  laugh."  If  it  had  done  nothing  but 
cause  Sir  Frederic  Banbury  to  take  up  the  cudgels 
against  the  vivisectors,  it  would  have  shown 
itself  a  force  at  which  no  sane  reformer  should 
scoff. 

When  Mr.  Shaw  wrote  that  Cleopatra's  guards- 
men were  more  civilized  than  modern  British 
officers  because  they  did  not  dig  up  and  muti- 
late their  dead  enemies,  he  must  have  asked  him- 
self whether  we  would  be  dense  enough  to  be 
angry  or  would  spot  that  he  was  writing  provoca- 
tive nonsense.  His  tongue  was  in  his  cheek. 
Civilization,  he  said  to  himself,  is  striding  since 
its  latest  children  have  given  up  mutilating  the 
living.  Half  the  time,  of  course,  he,  like  the 
baby  in  Alice  in  Wonderland^  only  does  it  to 
annoy.  As  one  of  the  Irish  garrison  in  England, 
he  is  more  concerned  to  worry  the  natives  than 
to  better  their  lot.  His  dual  nationahty  compli- 
cates the  estimate  of  his  methods  and  intentions. 
His  manner,  if  I  may  a  little  misquote    him, 

159 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

is  frivolous,  because  he  is  nearly  an  Englishman  ; 
but  he  sometimes  means  what  he  says  because 
he  is  almost  an  Irishman.  Anyhow,  he  is  very 
much  the  British  Islander  as  he  has  described 
him :  "  seeking  quarrels  merely  to  show  how 
stubborn  his  jaws  are."  Consequently,  he  was 
one  of  the  war's  first  casualties.  He  went  over  the 
top  at  the  wrong  moment.  He  damaged  himself 
irreparably  with  the  public  by  untimely  sayings 
which  with  unquestioned  propriety  appeared  a 
month  or  two  later  in  every  smug  leading  article. 
His  sporting  instinct  may  be  gratified  by  know- 
ing he  was  first  in  the  field  by  a  short  neck, 
but  life  in  England,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to 
him,  is  not  all  sport.  It  is  nothing  that  his 
judgment  may  have  been  just.  Mr.  Shaw  has 
said  that  a  judge  must  not  even  be  misunderstood. 


160 


MR.    HILAIRE    BELLOC 

WHILST  the  country  was  at  war  the 
advisabihty  of  reading  Mr.  Belloc  was 
clear,  and  the  advantage  of  agreeing  with  him 
was  almost  equally  patent.  In  days  when  all 
conversation  had  a  way  of  turning  to  military 
discussion,  the  peaceful  citizen  was  in  need  of  a 
guide.  When  he  wanted  information  on  such 
points  as  the  juncture  of  Russky  and  Brussilov, 
or  how  the  Fourth  Division  had  stood  in  regard 
to  the  Le  Cateau-Cambrai  line  on  the  25th  August, 
he  went  as  readily  to  the  works  of  Mr.  Belloc 
as,  when  leaving  London  for  his  sea-side  holiday, 
he  went  to  the  works  of  Mr.  Bradshaw.  In 
both  cases  he  acted  under  fear  that  worse  things 
might  befall  him.  He  did  not  really  like  the 
way  in  which  either  of  his  authorities  set  the 
facts  of  the  case  before  him.  Secretly,  he 
resented  the  dogmatic,  more  than  pontifical, 
fashion  in  which  they  answered  his  queries  by 
groups  of  letters  and  figures.  With  words  he 
could,  and  commonly  did,  argue  whenever  he 
found  them  in  print,  rebutting  them  to  his  own 
satisfaction  with  others  he  had  found  in  print 

161  L 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

elsewhere,  but  for  those  people  who  confronted 
him  with  symbols,  which  once  divorced  from 
their  context  became  meaningless,  he  could 
not  pretend  to  be  a  match.  On  the  other  hand, 
experience  had  taught  him  that  neglect  of  the 
time-table  always  brought  in  its  train  dire 
humiliations,  and  he  soon  learnt  that  failure  to 
follow  Mr.  Belloc's  teaching  had  equally  un- 
pleasant results. 

Imagine  him,  for  instance,  at  his  club,  button- 
holed by  a  man  who  insisted  on  telling  him  what 
would  happen  when  A.B.,  an  irresistible  German 
force,  met  CD.,  an  immovable  French  object. 
Unless  he  could  counter  this  by  observations 
on  the  importance  of  W.X.Y.Z.,  the  open 
strategic  square,  he  might  have  to  admit  himself 
worsted  by  one  who  was  politically  unsound, 
notoriously  a  bore,  and  to  whom  he  could  give 
a  stroke  a  hole.  After  one  such  contretemps 
his  course  of  reading  had  nothing  whatever  to 
do  with  his  normal  tastes.  In  the  past,  war  had 
pleasantly  stirred  his  mind  when  he  had  looked 
at  a  picture  by  Mr.  Caton  Woodville  or  heard 
the  "  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade "  recited ; 
but  now  he  had  to  learn  about  it  anew,  and  with 
such  pains  as  he  had  not  known  since  his  first 
exercises  in  algebra.     In  most  cases,  however, 

162 


MR.         HILAIRE         BELLOC 

the  Belloc  student  found  himself  rewarded. 
If  he  did  not  precisely  understand  all  that  was 
toward,  his  pretences  became  at  least  plausible. 
Sometimes,  perhaps,  his  master  misled  him. 
In  the  third  year  of  war  a  journalist  made  a 
list  of  Mr.  Belloc's  mistakes,  and  so  paid  him 
unconscious  tribute.  People  did  not  catalogue 
the  blunders  of  other  military  critics ;  they 
had  neither  the  requisite  time  nor  paper. 

Widely  was  Mr.  Belloc  accepted  in  those  days 
as  a  teacher,  and  there  is  no  gainsaying  his 
qualifications.  It  is  enough  to  mention  here 
but  two  of  them — a  good  grasp  of  his  subject's 
technical  side,  and  the  ability  to  write  of  it 
intelligibly.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  explaining 
his  success,  but  I  have,  unfortunately,  to  turn 
to  the  question  of  his  failures  in  other  fields. 
Mr.  Belloc  has  spent  most  of  his  adult  life  in 
addressing  the  British  public,  yet  only  for  a 
few  years,  when  we  were  living  in  abnormal 
circumstances,  has  he  been  given  serious  hearing. 
To  the  small  minority  which  delights  in  literary 
style  some  of  his  books  are  a  joy  for  ever,  but 
the  larger  number  to  whom  one  might  expect 
his  controversial  work  to  appeal  has  merely 
gaped  at  him.  In  1906  he  entered  Parliament 
as  one  of  the  Liberal  victors.     The  elections  of 

163 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 


that  year  were  a  triumph  of  the  Nonconformist 
conscience  ;  the  greatest  and,  perhaps,  the  last 
of  its  triumphs  in  England.  Mr.  Belloc  thought 
the  polls  ought  to  have  been  a  pronouncement 
in  favour  of  liberty  and  democracy.  He  imagined 
the  country  was  ripe  for  its  Danton ;  as  a 
matter  of  fact  it  was  hardly  ready  for  its 
Campbell-Bannerman . 

The  rising  young  man  appeared  at  Westminster 
at  the  wrong  hour,  and  the  result  was  his  attack 
on  the  party  system.  At  the  time  of  its  publica- 
tion one  could  read  his  book  on  that  subject 
with  a  good  deal  of  sympathy,  but  reading  it 
now  one  may  find  that  sympathy  has  waned. 
The  author  reminds  one  how  in  days  of  old  every 
move  in  the  Parliamentary  game  was  arranged 
between  the  two  front  benches.  Nowadays  two 
men  may  be  sitting  on  the  same  front  bench 
and  each  be  making  a  move  of  which  the  other 
is  in  happy  ignorance.  Indeed,  observers  have 
of  late  noticed  more  than  one  Minister  with  his 
right  hand  chastizing  his  left  for  surreptitious 
activities.  Already  one  may  doubt  whether 
the  change  has  been  for  the  better,  and  suspect 
that  the  old  system  had  some  of  the  very  virtues 
Mr.  Belloc  most  hotly  denied  it,  to  wit,  firm 
principles,  openness,  and  regard  for  the  people. 

164 


MR.         HILAIRE  BELLOC 

In  that  same  book  was  a  denunciation  of  party 
newspapers,  with  their  wearisome  repetition  of 
stale  cries  and  their  devotion  to  vested  interests 
in  game  or  groceries.  They  were  not  all  they 
should  have  been ;  but  can  one  really  prefer 
the  modern  journal  with  a  new  cry  every  week, 
and  devotion  to  no  interest  at  all  save  that  of 
its  circulation  department  ? 

In  the  general  upheaval,  however,  Mr.  Belloc 
should  have  found  a  place  for  himself  in  public 
life.  Instead,  he  is  once  more  in  his  Cave  of 
Adullam,  preaching,  but  with  no  more  than 
two  or  three  of  the  converted  gathered  together 
as  his  regular  congregation.  More  than  once 
whilst  writing  this  article  I  have  had  to  remind 
myself  that  I  have  come  to  bury  Mr.  Belloc  not 
to  praise  him,  but  this  I  cannot  help  noticing, 
that  the  number  of  his  disciples  does  not  increase. 
He  is  an  enigma  to  most  Englishmen,  and  as 
such,  is  distrusted.  Perhaps  he  is  too  revolution- 
ary for  our  temper.  Those  others  who  from  time 
to  time  are  indicted  as  Bolshevists  in  leading 
organs  of  private  opinion,  pursue  their  evolu- 
tionary way,  looking  for  socialism  to  succeed 
capitalism  as  day  succeeds  night.  Do  big 
businesses  hold  the  field  ?  So  much  the  better  : 
they  are  but  milestones   showing   how  near  we 

165 


ABOUT        IT       AND       ABOUT 

are    to    that    earthly   paradise    prophesied    by 
Saint  Marx. 

Such  opportunism  is  not  in  Mr.  Belloc's 
nature.  He  is  a  second  Omar  in  his  desire  to 
grasp  our  sorry  scheme  of  things  and  to  shatter 
it  to  bits.  Afterwards,  of  course,  we  are  each  to 
acquire  a  morsel,  and  his  programme  as  outlined 
in  The  Servile  State  and  elsewhere,  is  to  me 
attractive.  I  should  like  to  see  him  settled 
on  his  three  acres  of  hop  garden,  and  using  his 
great  talents  as  chairman  of  the  guild  which 
would  own  the  local  oast-house.  But,  just  as 
he  is  too  revolutionary  for  the  Extreme  Left, 
so  he  is  too  reactionary  for  the  Extreme  Right. 
Reaction  has  its  friends,  yet,  when  they  are 
examined  it  is  found  that  they  wish  to  return 
to  the  days  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  or,  in  a  few  desper- 
ate cases,  to  Lord  Melbourne.  For  Mr.  Belloc 
reactionary  is  never  the  correct  term.  He  is 
a  resurrectionist.  In  the  age  he  would  revive, 
no  temporal  peer  held  an  acre  of  church  land, 
and  the  Stock  Exchange  had  not  been  built. 
Many  persons  whom  one  does  not  commonly 
rank  among  the  progressives  are  ready  to  use 
the  latest  implements  of  modern  warfare  should 
his  threats  of  a  return  to  our  bad  old  days  ever 
materialize. 

166 


MR.         HILAIRE         BELLOC 

The  apparent  paradox  of  Mr.  Belloc  might 
have  left  the  pubHc  in  the  position  of  Buridan's 
ass,  did  it  not  chance  to  have  straight  in  front 
f  it  another  bundle  of  hay,  which,  though  it 
be  poor  stuff,  it  continues  to  munch  grumblingly 
in  the  manner  of  all  other  intelligent  asses.  In 
consequence,  our  philosopher  and  his  problems 
have  been  neglected.  Probably  he  never  under- 
stood the  nature,  that  is  to  say  the  nationality, 
of  the  beast.  Mr.  Belloc  may  be  a  Sussex  man, 
but  nobody  makes  the  mistake  of  thinking  he 
is  English.  The  Channel,  that  sacred  strip 
of  blue  water  to  the  native,  means  nothing  to 
him.  Has  he  not  written  of  the  woods  which 
stretch  from  Tay  to  Roncesvalles  ?  He  is  the 
last  of  the  Romans.  Racially  and  spiritually 
he  ought,  then,  to  be  a  good  European,  even, 
in  its  widest  sense,  a  citizen  of  the  world.  To 
the  struggle  between  the  nations  has  succeeded 
a  yet  greater  struggle  for  unity  among  the 
peoples  ;  but  in  every  land  the  torch-bearers  of 
the  new  movement  are  hard  pressed.  Here  is 
no  petty  question  for  party  whips  and  chapel 
deacons ;  here  is  a  cause  for  which  men  can 
live,  yet  where  is  Mr.  Belloc  to-day  ?  Now, 
if  ever,  should  he  be  in  the  arena,  but  as  I 
have  said,  he  is  in  his  Cave  of  Adullam.     For 

167 


ABOUT       IT       AND       ABOUT 

his  own  comfort,  one  can  only  hope  that  it 
has  been  well  censed  to  avoid  any  contamina- 
tion which  may  have  been  left  by  its  original 
Jewish  occupants. 

Some  there  are  who  say  that  Mr.  Belloc  stands 
for  himself  alone,  but  that  is  injustice.  One 
kind  of  unity  he  understands  ;  it  is  the  unity 
of  his  church.  One  high  vision  he  possesses  ; 
it  is  the  vision  of  the  French  Revolution.  The 
combination  has  possibilities  so  magnificent  that 
one  would  not  lightly  dismiss  it,  but  it  has 
never  been  blessed  by  fortune,  and  it  is  as 
suspect  beyond  the  mountains  as  it  is  in  the 
Jacobin  Club,  or,  indeed,  in  almost  any  known 
habitation  of  men  which  lies  between.  Behind 
every  man  who  believes  that  by  it  can  the 
world  be  regenerated,  looms  the  sad  and  warning 
figure  of  Felicite  de  Lamennais  fleeing  from 
La  Chenaie  into  the  wilderness.  The  cap  of 
liberty  hoisted  on  a  cross  is  a  standard  which 
has  before  led  to  catastrophe.  The  lesson  was 
learned  long  ago.  One  does  not  go  to  Mass 
wearing  a  carmagnole. 


168 


THE    ANARCHIST 

IT  is  not  easy  for  an  Englishman  to  under- 
stand either  the  character  or  importance 
of  the  Anarchist.  He  is  one  of  those  persons  of 
whom  a  precise  misconception  has  long  been 
established.  His  eruptions  have  disturbed  our 
common  round  of  existence  no  more  than  have 
those  of  Vesuvius,  but  the  stage  and  fiction  have 
made  us  imagine  familiarity  with  him.  In 
moments  of  panic  the  average  special  constable 
or  citizen  guard  might  be  tempted  to  arrest 
almost  anybody  who  wore  a  cloak  and  had  dark 
hair  and  eyes  and  a  swarthy  complexion.  Trading 
on  these  romantic  fancies,  the  National  Union 
of  Railwaymen  some  months  ago  published  a 
sketch  of  a  presumably  typical  member,  to 
which  was  affixed  the  legend :  "Is  this  man 
an  anarchist  ?  "  The  question  was,  of  course, 
rhetorical,  and,  as  they  say  in  the  Latin  grammar 
books,  expected  the  answer  "  No."  Mr. 
Dyson  had  drawn  an  individual  stripped  to  his 
shirt-sleeves,  and  surrounded  by  his  family. 
Landing  in  America,  he  might  have  been  classed 
as   a  desirable  type  of  Swedish   emigrant,    but 

169 


ABOUT       IT       AND       ABOUT 

here  we  recognized  him  as  British  to  the  core, 
and  the  desponding  droop  of  his  moustache  was 
conclusive  sign  of  his  integrity.  Had  its  ends 
been  waxed  in  the  style  affected  by  Mr.  Cramp, 
the  picture  might  have  had  a  mixed  reception. 
But  the  cartoonist  knew  his  public.  It  was  sheer 
bad  luck  that  his  honest  workman  did,  in  fact, 
facially  resemble  a  once  notorious  terrorist  of 
the  name  of  Koenigstein,  although  it  in  no  way 
detracted  from  the  success  of  an  excellent  piece 
of  pictorial  propaganda.  In  popular  imagina- 
tion this  man  remained  everything  that  the 
anarchist  was  not. 

In  childhood  I  was  taught  that  bombs  were 
as  necessary  to  the  practice  of  anarchy  as  a  bat 
and  ball  to  a  game  of  cricket.  When  I  was 
able  to  carry  out  a  little  independent  investiga- 
tion, I  found  this  was  not  strictly  true.  I  dis- 
covered that  certain  persons,  such  as  Reclus, 
Prince  Kropotkin,  and  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell, 
whilst  evidently  anarchists,  were  in  many  ways 
model  citizens  to  whom  Europe  must  presently 
erect  monuments.  The  pages  of  Proudhon 
positively  assured  me  that  the  Social  Revolution 
would  come  with  enlightenment  and  not  with 
explosions.  I  began  to  see  that  I  had  not  only 
been  led  to  malign  anarchism,  but  to  underrate 

170 


THE        ANARCHIST 

it.  Regicide  and  such-like  incidents  were,  I 
gathered,  mere  pranks  of  the  irresponsible,  meant 
at  most  as  tweaks  to  the  nose  of  organized 
society.  The  big  men  might  condemn  them 
for  reasons  of  policy  or  humanity,  but  they 
despised  them  because  they  themselves  had 
much  larger  schemes  in  mind.  Nobody  with  a 
head  on  his  shoulders  thought  that  the  removal 
of  a  king  or  two  or  even  the  assassination  of  a 
private  citizen  who  had  offended  delicate 
sensibilities  by  buying  his  clothes  at  too  good 
a  tailor,  was  bringing  nearer  the  year  one  of 
freedom.  The  anarchist  with  a  brain  was  the 
first  to  deride  such  foolery.  Tweaking  at  society 
might  amuse  boys,  but  his  ideal  was  its  total 
destruction. 

Mr.  Bumble,  who  was  a  beadle  all  over,  once 
let  fall  the  remark  that  the  law  was  an  ass,  and 
it  is  not  for  a  moment  to  be  supposed  that  he 
was  suffering  from  what  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison 
calls  the  viru^  Snowdenicum,  or  from  any  of  its 
earlier  varieties.  Parochial  officers  of  his  stand- 
ing have  always  been  immune  from  such  irritants. 
In  part,  one  may  account  for  his  aphorism  by 
the  fact  that  he  was  a  "  literary  character," 
but  chiefly  by  the  assumption  that  he  held  it 
to  express  an  obvious  truth ;   and  a  truth  must, 

171 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

indeed,  be  obvious  when  it  can  be  assimilated 
by  beings  as  widely  sundered  as  a  beadle  and  an 
anarchist.  When  Fourier  said  that  civilization 
was  the  enemy,  he  and  Bumble  were  in  virtual 
agreement,  for  law  and  civilization  are  generally 
regarded  as  interchangeable  terms.  Only  a  few 
years  ago,  it  was  possible  to  find  excuses  for  the 
Fourier  state  of  mind,  or  to  blame  it  solely  for 
its  pessimism.  Civilization  seemed  to  have  come 
to  a  dead  end  where  one  could  but  see  Park 
Lane  on  one  side  and  a  slum  on  the  other.  The 
"  Empire  of  old  Mammon,"  despite  Carlyle's 
prediction,  looked  to  be  as  strong  as  ever. 
Mr.  Nevinson,  with  all  his  specialized  experience 
of  revolutions,  could  write  that  a  revolutionist 
need  never  be  afraid  of  going  too  far. 

Wealth  and  the  State  between  them  controlled 
the  machine  from  which  daily  bread  issued. 
Half  the  population  seemed  too  inert  for  action 
of  any  sort,  and  the  herd  spirit  could  be  trusted 
to  unite  most  of  the  remainder  in  crushing  the 
divergent  rebel.  To  say  that  one  saw  the  an- 
archist's point  of  view  need  not  mean  that  one 
endorsed  it.  He  beheld  civilization  much  as  an 
artist  beholds  the  Albert  Memorial.  Here,  he 
said,  is  something  irremediably  bad  ;  let  it  be 
destroyed.     Yet,   with  these  fine  words  in  his 

172 


THE        ANARCHIST 


mouth,  and,  perhaps,  finer  visions  in  his  eye, 
he  had  deep  in  him  a  sickening  feehng  that  the 
destruction  would  never  be.  All  he  really  ex- 
pected was  that,  if  he  could  distribute  enough 
mental  dynamite  in  the  crowd,  a  few  of  the 
excrescences  on  modern  society  might  be  re- 
moved. His  speech  and  methods  were  strong, 
but  in  practical  politics  he  was  less  dreaded  than 
the  mildest  mannered  liberal  reformer.  The 
era  of  successful  revolutions,  as  distinct  from 
military  risings,  seemed  to  have  definitely  ended. 
Except  in  Russia,  few  thought  it  worth  while 
even  to  attempt  revolt. 

Happily,  however,  a  couatry  without  rebels 
is  unimaginable  on  this  side  of  the  millennium. 
Even  if  England  possessed  none  demanding 
immediate  attention,  our  natural  craving  nearly 
succeeded  in  inventing  several.  Wlien  Mr. 
Asquith  was  solving  a  constitutional  crisis  by 
methods  which  to  anybody  outside  the  legal 
profession  might  have  seemed  pedantic  and 
meticulous,  he  was  hailed  as  the  engineer  of  a 
daring  coup  d'etat.  To  reach  the  front  rank 
of  contemporary  revolutionaries,  it  was  only 
necessary  to  commit  a  nuisance  in  the  presence 
of  a  press  agent,  and  Miss  Pankhurst  and  Sir 
Edward  Carson  did  not  let  their  opportunities 

173 


ABOUT       IT       AND       ABOUT 

slip.  Churchwardens  signed  insurgent  covenants 
and  premediated  treason.  Women  with  proved 
records  of  domesticity  threw  stones  at  windows 
and  liked  to  hear  the  glass  break.  It  took, 
indeed,  an  experienced  rebel  to  realize  how 
much  of  the  noise  was  stage  thunder,  and  that 
the  big  drums  being  beaten  were,  if  possible, 
hollower  than  big  drums  usually  are.  But  to 
him  it  was  evident  that  such  sounds  would  not 
bring  down  the  walls  even  of  the  jerry-built 
Jericho  in  which  civilized  society  was  sheltering. 
Most  of  the  cacophanists  were  members  of  the 
garrison  out  for  a  half-holiday. 

Where  the  true-hearted  and  dejected  rebels 
of  those  days  were  most  in  error  was  in  their 
belief  in  the  sagacity  of  Governments.  They 
saw  their  enemy's  overwhelming  superiority  in 
organization.  Their  propaganda,  whether  by 
word  or  deed,  availed  nothing  against  it.  It  did 
not  occur  to  them  that  society  and  its  rulers  were 
about  to  hold  a  gigantic  auto-da-fe  in  which 
their  whole  citadel  was  to  be  set  in  flames  and 
brought  to  ruin  in  the  hope  of  securing  the 
salvation  of  some  of  its  inhabitants.  In  his 
wildest  dreams,  the  most  ferocious  anarchist 
may  have  imagined  himself  with  enough  explosive 
and  inflammable  material  to  produce  some  such 

174 


THE        ANARCHIST 

holocaust ;  but  he  had  beHeved  himself  a  monopo- 
list in  dreams  of  that  description.  We  now  know 
how  wrong  he  was.  Two  or  three  autocrats, 
with  most  of  mankind  as  accessories  after  the 
fact,  did  the  anarchist's  work  for  him,  and  did 
it  thoroughly.  After  the  years  of  war,  what 
is  left  of  civilization  is  small  and  fragmentary. 
The  only  useful  task  left  is  carefully  to  pick  over 
the  pieces,  certain  that  many  must  be  rejected, 
but  hoping  that  some  worth  preserving  may  be 
foimd. 

Standing  in  the  world's  wreckage,  it  is  self- 
evident  that  the  anarchist  has  lost  his  raison 
d'etre.  I  have  heard  it  said  of  some  pompous 
buildings  that  their  destruction  has  been,  at 
least  aesthetically,  a  gain  to  mankind,  but  I 
have  never  heard  it  said  that  they  could  be 
further  improved  by  planting  a  dozen  more 
shells  in  the  wreckage.  For  the  rebel  there 
is  to-day  as  much  need  as  ever,  and  far  more 
scope.  All  originality,  all  progress,  is  rebellion ; 
all  creation,  if  it  be  anything  more  than  repetition, 
is  rebellion.  Without  it,  we  should  still  be  in 
the  stone  age,  or,  rather,  should  not  be  recogniz- 
ably human  at  all.  It  is  the  leaven  which  pre- 
vents us  all  from  becoming  permanently 
lumpish.     But    the    modern    rebel,    like    many 

175 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

other  people,  can  afford  to  own  that  his  spirit 
has  been  chastened  by  events.  If  his  chief 
or  only  interest  remains  in  destruction,  it  is 
because  he  has  neither  learned  nor  forgotten 
anything  in  the  last  five  years,  and  his  place  is 
with  the  Bourbons.  Anarchism  as  preached 
by  Godwin  and  Bakunin  might  have  been  salu- 
tary if  practised  in  their  own  age,  but  intelli- 
gence rejects  it  in  ours.  The  more  slowly  moving 
mind  of  the  honest  workman  in  Mr.  Dyson's 
picture  has  but  recently  discovered  it.  Poten- 
tially, he  is  an  anarchist.  If  the  remains  of 
society  and  its  laws  are  not  so  pieced  together 
as  to  give  the  lie  to  Fourier  and  Bumble,  he  will 
be  the  most  dangerous  anarchist  there  has  ever 
been. 


176 


SONS    OF    TOIL 

WITHIN  the  last  few  months  I  have  read 
some  dozens  of  articles  which  professed 
to  examine  the  causes  of  labour  unrest.  Some 
of  them  were  instructive,  but,  taken  together, 
they  were  confusing.  Whether  they  found  the 
reasons  to  be  economic  or  political,  whether 
they  blamed  the  greedy  capitalist  or  the  grasping 
socialist,  there  was  not  one  of  them  whose  writer 
did  not  seem  to  be  at  least  a  little  lacking  either 
in  acumen  or  frankness.  Only  a  partial  truth 
was  ever  told.  Nobody  appeared  willing  to 
admit  that  behind  almost  every  strike  as  motive 
power  was  a  genuine,  heartfelt,  dislike  for  "  base, 
mechanic  toil."  We  have  been  taught  that 
Adam  delved  when  he  had  been  expelled  from 
Eden.  For  close  on  six  thousand  years,  accord- 
ing to  the  most  conservative  estimate  of  time, 
man  has  been  engaged  in  manual  labour.  It 
had  never,  perhaps,  been  seriously  questioned 
until  the  present  year  that  this  was  a  permanent 
state  of  affairs. 

On  the  other  hand,   there  are  signs  that  it 
had  always  been  resented  by  the  most  enlight- 

177  M 


ABOUT       IT        AND        ABOUT 

ened  races.  Had  men  been  blindly  industrious 
animals,  there  would  never  have  been  an  institu- 
tion of  slavery  among  the  Greeks.  Pharaoh 
would  never  have  had  his  trouble  with  the 
Israelites.  In  our  own  highly  developed  country, 
hard  labour  would  never  have  been  decreed 
as  a  punishment  for  crime.  Even  the  oft-told 
tale  of  the  industrious  apprentice,  when  properly 
analysed,  leads  to  the  same  conclusion.  To 
the  best  of  my  recollection,  that  youth  began  his 
career  by  working  twelve  hours  a  day,  with 
twenty  minutes  off  for  lunch.  The  second 
chapter  ought  to  have  told  us  how  he  worked 
for  thirteen  hours,  and  reduced  his  luncheon 
interval.  The  whole  story  should  have  been 
one  grand  crescendo  leading  up  to  the  point 
where  only  a  religious  scruple  prevented  him  from 
working  twenty-four  hours  on  the  seventh  as 
well  as  on  every  other  day  of  the  week.  Truth, 
however,  will  out  even  in  a  narrative  with  a 
moral.  The  apprentice,  as  we  all  know,  finally 
became  a  member  of  the  leisured  class,  and 
had  others  to  work  for  him.  No  hint  is  given 
that  he  was  inconsolable.  One  is  left  to  gather 
that  the  only  excuse  for  toil  is  the  hope  of 
obtaining  eventual  ease. 

In   a  book  written  by  one  Louis  Martin,  a 

178 


SONS        OF        TOIL 

French  Anglophobe  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
a  statement  is  made  which  to  most  readers  may 
seem    rather   Hke    a   feeble   joke.     The    author 
declared  his  conviction  that  we  were  what  he 
called  "  a  feminine  race."     At  first  glance  that 
sentence     has     only     a     flabbergasting     effect. 
England  has  so  long  been  personified  by  sturdy 
John   Bull,   and   France   by   such   a   variety  of 
charming    ladies,   that   a   reversal    of   the    roles 
strike  one  as  preposterous.    M.  Martin,  however, 
explained  himself  with  some  ingenuity,  and  the 
force  of  his  arguments  has  been  gradually  brought 
home  to  me.     Just,  he  said,  as  women  subjugate 
men  for  the  sake  of  having  bread-winners  in  the 
house,  so  do  the  English  bring  other  races  into 
their  empire   in   order  to   exploit  their  labour. 
It  would  be  easy  to  show  that  the  illustrations 
he  used  were  as  imjust  as  they  were  ungenerous, 
but  his  main  contention  would  remain.     Deep 
in  him  was  a  belief  that  we  had  a  natural  propen- 
sity, amounting  almost  to  a  genius,  for  making 
others  do  our  work.     He  named  the  Jew  as  our 
only  possible  equal  or  superior. 

Certainly  the  Briton  who  returns  from  Africa 
or  India  is  apt  to  say,  with  a  somewhat  lordly 
air,  that  this  or  that  is  not  a  white  man's  job. 
Not  precisely  an  idler,  he  has  come  to  the  con- 

179 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

elusion  that  certain  occupations  which  involve 
the  merely  mechanical  employment  of  his  hands 
and  feet,  are  unworthy  of  him.  It  has  never 
been  necessary  to  take  his  idiosyncrasies  very 
seriously.  He  has  been  treated  as  an  excep- 
tional being,  probably  the  victim  of  some  obscure 
tropical  disease.  Usually  the  possessor  of  a 
pension  or  a  fixed  and  independent  income,  his 
fastidiousness  has  not  disturbed  the  labour  market. 
We  are  only  beginning  to  recognize  the  truth 
about  his  state  of  mind,  and,  even  now,  we 
scarcely  dare  to  speak  it.  What  if  he  were  not 
exceptional  ?  What  if  he  were  simply  the  man 
who  had  the  courage  to  say  what  for  generations 
we  had  all  felt  ?  What  if  half  the  world's  work 
be  derogatory  to  a  white  man,  or  to  any  sort 
of  man  who  respects  himself? 

For  a  long  time  one  has  heard  of  the  dignity 
of  labour,  but  I  am  afraid  that  phrase  has  always 
enshrined  a  polite  fiction.  At  the  best  it  has 
been  the  exaggeration  of  a  mole  hill  of  truth 
into  a  Himalayan  chain  of  humbug.  Were 
the  British  people  to  be  made  judges  at  a  show 
where  prizes  were  to  be  given  to  the  most  dignified 
personages  in  the  British  Islands,  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  the  highest  award  would  be  made 
to  Mr.   Speaker.     In  the  privacy  of  his  home 

180 


SONS         OF        TOIL 

his  energy  may  be  unbounded.  Within  the 
circle  of  his  intimate  friends  it  may  be  an  open 
secret  that  he  does  physicial  training  on  all 
fours,  or  has  a  hobby  in  gardening.  Unknown 
to  any  of  them,  he  may  have,  and  with  difficulty 
suppress,  a  longing  to  steal  out  at  night  and 
help  in  sweeping  the  streets  of  Westminster, 
or,  in  the  early  morning  hours,  to  take  a  hand 
with  the  porters  at  Covent  Garden.  Our  whole 
idea  of  his  dignity  is  simply  founded  on  what 
we  can  see  of  him  in  public,  and  he  serves  to 
illustrate  our  latent  belief  that  dignity  and 
immobility  go  together.  Were  it  otherwise, 
we  should  not  insist  on  wrapping  him  up  in  robes 
carefully  designed  to  impede  all  bodily  activity, 
nor  should  we  place  on  his  head  a  wig  which 
would  cumber  any  honest  workman.  Instead 
of  seating  him  in  a  glorified  armchair,  we  should 
expect  him  constantly  to  patrol  the  gangways, 
as  a  policeman  patrols  the  Embankment,  now 
and  then  laying  a  hand  on  the  shoulders  of 
members  whom  his  perambulations  failed  to 
keep  awake.  Finally,  to  show  he  was  not 
work-shy,  he  would  be  as  ostentatiously  inse- 
parable from  his  mace  as  an  old-time  navvy 
from  his  pick.  Allowing  it  to  lie  untouched  for 
hours  on  the  table  would   be  the  signal  to  a 

181 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

horrified  House  of  Commons  that  Mr.  Speaker 
had  downed  tools. 

Sceptics  can  put  the  whole  matter  to  a  very 
simple  test  if  they  so  desire.  Let  them  first 
think  of  some  task  which  they  commonly  pay 
others  to  execute  for  them,  and,  for  preference, 
one  which  will  make  them  perspire  and  make 
them  dirty.  Cleaning  the  kitchen  chimney  is 
as  good  as  any  I  can  recommend.  Next,  let 
them  go  and  do  it,  and,  then,  let  them  present 
themselves  before  their  usually  respectful  and 
dutiful  children.  The  reception  they  will  get 
may  be  either  one  of  contemptuous  horror  or 
of  such  laughter  as  few  but  Mr.  George  Robey 
can  habitually  provoke,  but  in  either  case  it 
will  convince  them  that  the  dignity  of  labour 
is  as  yet  insufficiently  appreciated. 

The  same  lesson  is  enforced  by  the  cases  of 
those  who  from  time  to  time  voice  the  miseries 
of  the  middle  classes.  Popular  novelists  and 
others  who  are  passing  poor  on  their  four-figured 
incomes  do  not  enter  into  this  discussion,  but 
the  three-pound-a-week  man  whose  calling 
necessitates  a  frequent  change  of  linen  is  signi- 
ficant. In  theory  he  is  attracted  by  the  happy 
affluence  of  many  manual  labourers,  but  does 
he  ever  strive  to  attain  it  by  joining  their  ranks  ? 

182 


SONS        OF        TOIL 

Does  he  willingly  bring  up  his  sons  to  be  plumbers, 
miners,  engine-drivers,  or  ploughmen  ?  On  the 
contrary,  he  proves  himself  capable  of  every 
heroic  sacrifice  in  order  to  prevent  them  from 
having  to  follow  the  comparatively  profitable 
occupations  of  these  others.  Should  one  of 
them,  gripping  his  courage  in  both  hands, 
determine  to  abandon  coat  and  collar  for  the 
sake  of  better  wages,  it  almost  always  means 
emigration.  Such  shame  must  be  hidden  in 
distant  lands  which  have  not  our  standard  of 
seemhness.  All  the  while,  too,  the  ambitious 
children  of  the  well  paid  workmen  are  hastening 
to  enter  the  overcrowded,  underpaid  band  of 
those  who  keep  up  appearances  at  the  cost 
of  keeping  down  their  appetite.  To  talk  of  a 
disappearing  middle  class  is  absurd.  Even  if 
it  cease  to  breed,  it  will  never  lack  recruits. 
Make  no  mistake  about  it.  The  class  which  is 
disappearing  is  the  class  of  those  whom  we  used 
to  call  the  horny-handed  sons  of  toil. 

It  is,  of  course,  a  bewildering  situation  with 
bewildering  prospects.  In  the  last  century,  the 
"  great  triumph  of  fact "  was  Coketown,  the 
hive  of  industry.  You  might  hate  it,  but  there 
did  not  seem  the  remotest  possibility  of  getting 
away  from  it.     Every  one  of  its  swarming  popula- 

186 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

tion  seemed  also  to  be  a  fact ;  taken  collectively 
they  were  about  the  hardest  fact  in  creation. 
The  system  under  which  they  lived  might  be 
detestable,  and  could,  perhaps,  be  bettered, 
but  that  it  should  perish  utterly  seemed  incon- 
ceivable. The  picture  of  an  England  in  which 
there  was  neither  toiling  nor  spinning  would  have 
been  treated  as  Utopian.  Bare  mention  of  it 
to  any  man  of  common  sense  would  have  pro- 
voked the  immediate  request  to  face  facts. 
"  How,"  he  would  have  asked,  *'  could  England 
or  the  world  get  on,  if  the  majority  of  mortals 
did  not  toil  and  spin  ?  " 

I  have  not  found  an  answer  to  his  question 
yet,  but  I  am  facing  facts,  and  the  fact  of  the 
hour  is  that  the  world's  work  is  not  being  done, 
or,  anyhow,  no  great  part  of  it  is  being  done  in 
Britain.  Perhaps  we  are  the  feminine  race  we 
have  been  called,  but  there  seems  no  immediate 
prospect  of  finding  a  masculine  race  willing  to 
support  us.  The  ghost  of  the  horny-handed 
one  merely  gibbers  at  us.  "  After  me,"  he 
says,  "  the  deluge."  After  all,  he  is  not  the 
first  despot  to  make  that  remark,  yet  the  earth 
is  still   habitable   in  places. 


184 


THE  ORANGEMAN 

SOME  seven  years  ago  I  was  in  Ulster. 
Were  I  to  write  that  seven  years  ago 
I  had  been  in  Bedfordshire,  Birmingham,  or 
Berlin,  and  had  observed  this  or  that,  I  should 
be  rightly  told  that  my  observations  had  for 
some  time  ceased  to  have  any  bearing  on 
practical  politics,  and,  in  that  curiously  con- 
structed phrase,  reminded  that  "  there  had  been 
a  war  on."  No  such  objection,  however,  can 
be  raised  to  my  Ulster  memories.  In  that  part 
of  the  world  they  have  a  different  scale  of 
historical  values,  and,  among  the  Orangemen, 
its  most  vocal  representatives,  things  are  much 
as  when  I  saw  them  last,  and  not  very  different 
from  what  they  were  in  the  years  of  the  Boyne 
and  Aughrim.  One  of  Sir  Edward  Carson's 
latest  contributions  to  Irish  debate  has  been 
to  liken  Sir  Horace  Plunkett  to  an  individual 
who  gained  some  notoriety  in  the  past  by  trying 
to  betray  Derry  to  King  James.  Into  the 
justice  of  the  comparison  one  need  not  go, 
but  it  appears  to  be  far-fetched  ;  fetched,  in 
fact,  from  two  hundred  years  ago.     A  character 

185 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

in  "  Mr.  Britling,"  once  spoke  of  Sir  Horace  as 
a  doctrinaire  dairyman,  showing  that,  despite 
political  virus,  she  kept  an  open  eye  on  current 
events,  including  co-operative  creameries.  But 
the  Orange  leader  will  have  none  of  this  cant 
of  modernism  and  living  and  learning.  He  is 
angry  because  some  people  in  England  have 
lately  altered  their  ideas  on  the  propriety  of 
resisting  the  law  by  force  of  arms,  and  tries 
to  abash  them  by  proclaiming  that  he  never 
changes  his  views.  Will  some  opponent  please 
strike  a  blow  at  the  Belfast  linen  industry  by 
never  changing  his  shirt,  and  trying  to  persuade 
the  public  to  follow  his  example  ? 

Seven  years  ago  I  saw  in  Ulster  squads  of 
respectable  citizens  forming  fours  almost  as  well 
as  the  average  British  Territorials  of  those  days. 
No  secret  was  made  of  their  accomplishments, 
and  I  saw  no  reason  to  doubt  that  they  had 
almost  as  many  guns  as  they  told  me  they  had. 
Possibly  they  have  as  many  now,  and  probably 
they  drill  much  better,  for  many  of  them  have 
been  in  the  regular  army.  That  they  are  as 
dangerous  as  they  were  is,  however,  untrue. 
In  those  days,  they  thought  they  had  British 
opinion  behind  them,  and  that  their  front  line 
would  consist  of  British  bayonets.     One  of  their 

ISQ 


THE        ORANGEMAN 

leaders  boasted  that  they  had  the  professional 
army  in  their  pockets.     In  certain  eventualities 
more  than  half  the  senior  officers  on  the  active 
list  would  have  asked  to  be  relieved  of  their 
commissions,    and    many    of   the    juniors    were 
willing  to  go  further.     Young  men  who  had  only 
played   at   war   were    daring,    and   the   women 
they  met  at  dances  were  encouraging.     A  military 
friend  of  mine,   who  knew  nothing  of  politics 
and  cared  less,  but  was  a  hot  Nationalist  when 
roused,  put  his  name  to  any  number  of  coven- 
anting documents  when  he  was  given  to  under- 
stand   that    the    cursed    English    Government 
meditated  some  harm  to  old  Ireland.     A  couple 
of  years  later,  when  his  battalion  was  sent  to 
the  Ulster  Division,  he  made  amends  by  leading 
his  men  into  their  new  camp  to  the  tune  of  the 
Shan  Van  Vocht.     However,  in  1913,  the  situa- 
tion   was    really    formidable,    and    the    Orange 
leaders  did  not  hesitate  to  exploit  it.     "  What  we 
want,"  said  a  colonel  of  volunteers,  "  is  to  frighten 
our   little   king."     He   never   put   an   envelope 
into  the  post  without  sticking  on  the  back  a 
red,    white   and   blue   seal,    inscribed   with   the 
motto,  "  Support  Loyal  Ulster." 

The   fighting   spirit   of  the   Orangemen   may 
be  as  strong  as  ever,  but  in  other  breasts  it  has 

187 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

weakened.  Most  of  us  have  had  a  surfeit  of 
war,  even  including  those  who,  so  to  speak, 
were  born  soldiers.  General  Go  ugh  has  become  a 
champion  of  conciliation,  and  whatever  chieftains 
may  repair  to  the  Curragh  of  Kildare,  he  will 
not  be  of  them.  Sir  Henry  Wilson,  one  fancies, 
may,  after  his  friendship  with  Marshal  Foch, 
have  come  to  think  more  charitably  of  Papists. 
With  the  income  tax  at  its  present  level,  and 
the  price  of  clothes  still  soaring.  Lady  Catherine 
Milnes-Gaskell  might  have  fewer  customers  than 
of  old  for  those  orange  lilies  she  used  to  sell 
in  aid  of  Ulster's  plan  of  campaign.  The  time 
has  been  when  the  Orange  Lodges  could  look 
for  a  good  deal  of  support  from  financial  interests 
in  England,  anxious  to  embarrass  any  Cabinet 
of  which  Mr.  Lloyd  George  was  a  member. 
That  desire  is  dead.  Stalwarts  of  Belfast, 
Bally  money,  and  Bally  men  a,  have  proved  what 
splendid  soldiers  they  are,  and  have  made  great 
sacrifices  in  a  great  cause.  Also,  they  are 
deeply  religious,  but  neither  courage  nor  creed 
prevents  them  from  having  a  due  respect  for 
Mammon.  The  time  has  come  when  if  Ulster 
were  to  fight,  Ulster  would  not  be  right  in  expect- 
ing her  battle  to  be  a  paying  proposition. 
Visitors   to   Belfast   can   never   avoid    seeing 

188 


THE        ORANGEMAN 

the  Town  Hall.  Usually,  there  is  an  Orange- 
man present  to  say  that  ninety  per  cent,  of  its 
cost  was  paid  in  Protestant  money,  and  he 
generally  adds  the  information  that  ninety  per 
cent,  of  the  paupers  in  the  local  workhouse  are 
Catholics.  I  once  questioned  a  member  of  the 
Order  on  what  were  his  real  fears  for  the  future 
under  Home  Rule.  He  began  by  contrasting 
the  native  Irish  unfavourably  with  Kurds, 
Albanians,  and  other  strange  folk  who  were  then 
held  to  be  first-class  practitioners  in  f rightfulness. 
He  ended  by  saying  that  a  Dublin  Government 
would  reduce  the  number  of  posts  he  had  a 
day  from  three  to  one,  and  he  let  me  know 
that  that  would  be  bad  for  his  business.  Amongst 
Orangemen  money  talks.  It  talks  even  more 
loudly  than  Sir  Edward  Carson.  Merchants 
and  manufacturers  may  consign  the  Pope  to 
hell  before  breakfast,  but  they  like  to  find  their 
letters  waiting  for  them  at  the  office  afterwards. 
Nobody  dreams  of  asking  the  War  Office  or 
the  Admiralty  to  coerce  Ulster^  It  is  the  Post- 
master-General who  holds  the  key  to  the  situation. 
Men  who  would  sing  "  Boyne  Water  "  if  the  great 
gun  of  Athlone  were  pointed  in  their  faces, 
would  sing  small  after  a  week's  interruption 
of  mail  orders. 

189 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

Coercion,  even  postal  coercion,  is  a  thing  of 
which  one  is  sorry  to  talk,  but  the  Orange- 
man is  making  himself  a  nuisance.  The  eternal 
drumming  by  which  he  keeps  his  convictions 
hot  is  an  abominable  din  in  other  ears.  One 
is  tired  of  his  talk  about  Aughrim  and  the 
Boyne  and  his  other  glorious  victories,  not  for- 
getting Dolly's  Brae,  that  disreputable  scuffle 
where  his  grandfathers  killed  an  idiot  boy. 
Others  say  sarcastically  that  Queen  Anne  is 
dead,  but  were  one  to  telegraph  the  news  to 
Ulster  it  would  presumably  cause  turmoil,  for 
there  still  seem  to  be  places  there  where  her 
accession  to  the  throne  has  not  yet  been  notified. 
Eminent  divines  have  cried  out  against  the 
habit  of  toasting  King  William  as  almost  akin 
to  the  Popish  practice  of  praying  for  the  dead, 
but  your  true  Orangeman  merely  says,  "  A  fig 
for  the  Bishop  of  Cork,"  spits  on  the  floor  of 
the  lodge  hall,  and  takes  another  drink  to  the 
memory  of  the  Great  Whig  Deliverer.  A  few 
years  ago  an  Ulster  pastor  talked  of  asking 
William's  aid  for  his  threatened  flock.  Unkind 
people  said  he  meant  the  Kaiser  ;  of  course  he 
meant  the  Dutchman. 

Those   of  us   who  live   a  little   more  in  the 
present  or  future  feel  that  the  Orange  ghost 

190 


THE        ORANGEMAN 

must  not  be  allowed  to  stalk  the  land  much 
longer.  For  obvious  reasons,  one  cannot  hope 
to  put  it  to  rest  by  the  usual  formula  of  priest 
and  holy  water,  but  in  days  which  are  already 
dark  enough  "  putting  out  the  sunrise  with  a 
bucket  of  the  Boyne "  cannot  be  endured. 
The  ghost  has  done  too  much  mischief  in  the 
past,  and  it  threatens  more.  It  still  scares 
timid  souls  by  standing  in  every  alley  that  can 
lead  to  peace  and  friendship  with  the  Irish 
people.  A  ridiculous  survival  of  seventeenth- 
century  bigotry,  it  pits  itself  against  an  under- 
standing with  the  United  States  and  the  con- 
summation of  man's  noblest  hopes  in  the  League 
of  Nations.  Sir  Edward  Carson  has  stood  easy 
whilst  thousands  of  Lutherans  are  handed  over 
to  the  rule  of  Catholic  Poland.  His  simple 
followers  are  taught  that  a  raffle  for  their  watches 
has  already  been  held  at  the  chapel  against  the 
day  when  Ireland  is  a  nation  once  again.  That 
is  why  the  Pope  has  such  a  bad  name  in  Porta- 
down. 

Seven  years  have  added  only  one  argument  to 
the  Orangeman's  stock.  He  says  that  he  has 
fought  for  the  Empire,  and  so  can  do  what  he 
likes  in  it.  The  same  thing  has  been  said  by 
colliers,  policemen,   and  burglars  in  respect  to 

191 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

their  several  intentions  of  striking  or  working, 
but  the  convenience  of  the  rest  of  the  population 
must  occasionally  be  studied.  "  We  will  not 
brook  interference  in  our  affairs,"  says  Sir 
Edward  Carson,  late  law  officer  of  the  Crown, 
"  by  any  country,  however  powerful."  Roger 
Casement  in  the  dock  said,  ''  Put  me  before 
a  jury  of  my  countrymen."  Both  made  the 
same  mistake.  Neither  realized  the  great  truth 
of  our  times,  that  no  country,  not  even  Ireland, 
or  a  part  of  it,  lives  to  itself  alone. 


192 


THE    DAILY    NEWSPAPER 

THERE  are  two  opinions  about  the   news- 
papers   of  to-day.     According   to    one,   it 
would  be  possible  to  improve  them ;   according 
to  the   other,  it  would   not.     The  latter  is  the 
opinion  of  the  cynic.     Personally,  I  owe  much 
to  newspapers,  and  am  fond  of  them.     For  the 
good  of  my  health  I  have  worn  them  next  my 
skin  under  a  damp  shirt,  and  in  ill-constructed 
huts  have  used  them  to  keep  out  wind  and  snow. 
Both  at  home  and  abroad  I  have  lighted  innu- 
merable fires  with  them.     When  living  in  dis- 
tricts uncomfortably  close  to  the  fighting  area, 
I  have  walked  miles  in  order  to  see  what  Mr. 
Garvin  or  Mr.  Gardiner  thought  about  the  war. 
Once,  when  camped  on  Salisbury  Plain,  I  was 
given  an    unforgettable  thrill  by  picking  up  a 
paper    and    reading    in    it    that    at   that   very 
moment   of    the    day    it    was    high    water    at 
London  Bridge.     If  I  had  but  a  penny  in  the 
world  I  should  consider  spending  it  on  a  news- 
paper,  in  the   hope  that  it  would  sustain  me 
longer    than    the    amount  of    food,    drink,    or 
tobacco  to  be  bought  for  that  sum.     The  daily 

198  N 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

press,  indeed,  seems  to  me  to  be  such  a  neces- 
sary institution,  and  in  essentials  so  admirable, 
that  I  find  it  hard  to  fathom  those  who  can  jeer 
at  it  without  wishing  it  better. 

In  the  days  of  our  forefathers,  a  just  and  general 
pride  was  taken  in  the  newspaper.     Information 
was    presented    with    sobriety    and    with    some 
apparent   reference    to    its    importance   to   the 
nation.     By  no  chance  whatever  were  the  de- 
liberations of  Parliament  treated  as   secondary 
to  the  matrimonial  squabbles  of  persons  who 
would  have  lived  and  died  in  obscurity  had  they 
not    entered    the    Divorce    Court.     The    affairs 
of  even  a  minor  foreign  State  were  not  dwarfed 
by  the  account  of  a  prize  fight  at  the  National 
Sporting  Club  or  a  football  match  at  Chelsea. 
Art   and  literature   were   still  given  almost   as 
much  attention  as  the  "  sport  of  kings."     Com- 
ment on  the  news  always  seemed  to  be  addressed 
by  a  man  of  intelligence  to  his  peers.     Bitterly 
partisan  it  may  have  been,  but  there  was  meat 
and  marrow  in  it,  and  the  bitterness  was  scarcely 
more  than  sauce  to  a  sound  dish.     Enlightened 
children  of  the  twentieth  century  may  be  out 
of  sympathy  with  the  high  Toryism  of  Gifford 
in  the  Standard,  and  with  Eyre  Crowe's  radicalism 
in  the  Dickensian  Daily  News,  but  these  men 

y  194 


THE      DAILY    NEWSPAPER 

did  represent  great  volumes  of  opinion  in  the 
country.  Their  ideals  were,  probably,  the 
highest  in  their  respective  camps.  They  believed, 
too,  that  it  was  a  leader-writer's  duty  to  lead 
the  public  and  not  merely  to  chivy  it  by  writing 
words  which,  if  spoken,  would  sound  like  the 
opening  of  ginger-beer  bottles.  Most  important 
of  all,  they  knew  whither  they  were  leading ; 
they  had  a  policy. 

For  the  change  which  has  come  over  journalism 
in  the  last  twenty-five  years,  many  reasons  have 
been  given.  The  most  amusing  is  that  which 
attributes  it  to  the  scattering  over  Fleet  Street 
of  Jowett's  pupils,  and  the  most  common  is 
that  we  live  in  a  democratic  age.  Neither 
explanation  satisfies  me.  It  was  not,  I  fancy, 
the  flower  of  Balliol  which  first  decided  that 
Balfour  Must  Go,  that  Tariff  Reform  meant 
Work  for  All,  or  that  the  Liberal  programme  would 
be  more  attractive  without  its  two  final  letters. 
But  if  Oxford  is  not  to  have  the  credit,  is  it 
fair  to  saddle  democracy  with  these  things  ? 
That  persons  who  work  in  pits  should  have  no 
desire  to  follow  the  thoughts  and  acts  of  Lady 
Sneerwell  and  the  British  Plush  Protection 
Society,  so  faithfully  reported  in  the  Morning 
Post,  is  fairly  obvious,  but  it  does  not  follow  that 

195 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 


"  the  working  man  "  has  much  less  Hterary  taste 
than    "  the   aristocrat  who   rides   and   shoots." 
Cheap   reprints   of  the   Enghsh   classics   rather 
suggest  that  the  former's  tastes  are  different, 
but    not   lower.     At   first    he    may    have    been 
deluded  by  hearing  that  a  new  species  of  news- 
paper had  been  devised  for  him,  but  he  should 
by  now  have  discovered  that  he  only  represents 
one  of  the  three  classes  at  which  it  was  aimed. 
The  other  two  were  the  professional  and  com- 
mercial men  who  think  they  are  too  busy  to 
read,   and  the   women  who  want  nothing  but 
the  feuilleton  and  such  items  of  news  as  resemble 
it.     It  was  mainly  these  two  classes  which  set 
the  fashion  for  what  the  so-called  "  popular  " 
newspaper    should    be.      Homeric    accounts    of 
league  competitions  and  the  struggle  for  cups 
may,  indeed,  be  sops  to  the  proletariat,  but  the 
other   columns   are    not   primarily    designed   to 
catch  the  labourer's  coppers.     Those  who  believe 
that  a  healthy  press  makes  for  a  healthy  nation 
should  realize  that  the  worst  enemy  is  he  who 
claims  that  he  has  only  time  to  skim  the  paper. 
For  him  have  truth  and  logic  been  curtailed  in 
head-line,    leaderette,    and    snappy    paragraph. 
Let   none   be   deceived   by   his   pose   of    weary 
Titan.     His  overtaxed  brain  can  still  concentrate 

196 


THE     DAILY      NEWSPAPER 

on  the  intricacies  of  a  game  of  bridge  or  of 
form  at  Newmarket.  His  overwrought  nerves 
still  permit  him  to  dance  to  whatever  substitute 
for  music  a  jazz  band  may  provide.  It  may 
be  impossible  for  a  writer  to  discuss  him  without 
some  of  that  prejudice  which  I  imagine  a  qualified 
physician  feels  for  the  confirmed  taker  of  patent 
medicines,  but,  to  give  my  opinion  for  what  it 
may  here  be  worth,  I  believe  him  to  be  one  of 
the  greatest  impostors  of  our  age. 

Feminine  influence  has  been  less  baneful. 
The  page  of  fashions  can  be  easily  avoided  by 
those  whom  it  does  not  concern,  and  there  is 
no  compulsion  to  read  the  great,  new  serial  by 
Miss  Ruby  M.  Ayres.  The  column  of  social 
gossip,  which  connects  Suburbiton  and  Mayfair 
as  by  a  Bridge  of  Sighs,  is  but  an  extension  of 
the  old  court  circular,  and  there  is  no  proof 
that  the  more  spiced  chronicles  of  scandal  are 
provided  for  women  only.  If  we  take  decreasing 
pride  in  the  press,  the  person  most  to  blame  is 
the  busy  man  with  lazy  mind.  A  perverted 
edition  of  Oliver  Twist,  he  asked  for  less,  and 
less  was  given  him.  Keeping  in  view  the  three 
classes  of  buyers  for  whom  the  modern  journa- 
list was  to  cater,  the  Harmsworth  brethren  and 
their  imitators   sought    and   found   the    lowest 

id7 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

common  denominator  of  the  three  types. 
The  genuinely  democratic  newspaper  does  not 
yet  exist.  Even  the  staff  of  the  Daily  Herald^ 
though  it  include  Mr.  Siegfried  Sassoon  himself, 
has  failed  to  create  it.  That  a  daily  paper  could 
be  both  intelligent  and  popular  was,  however, 
once  proved  by  that  group  of  writers  who  at 
the  beginning  of  "  the  change  of  things  "  made 
the   Star   shine   so   brightly. 

Too  much,  perhaps,  has  been  said  of,  and 
against,  the  newspaper  proprietor.  So  much 
talk  may  one  day  force  him  to  put  on  his  hat 
with  a  shoe-horn.  He  is  engaged  in  a  com- 
mercial venture,  and,  if  it  succeeds,  his  profits 
are,  from  the  commerical  point  of  view,  justifi- 
cation of  his  methods.  All  one  can  reasonably 
wish  is  that  he  could  be  brought  within  scope 
of  some  Food  and  Drugs  Act  which  should 
restrain  him  from  selling  deleterious  matter, 
and  compel  him  to  include  in  his  wares  a  fixed 
percentage  of  mentally  nourishing  substance. 
Still  less  are  the  members  of  his  staffs  to  be 
censured.  They  are  at  least  as  intelligent  as 
those  whom  the  gallant  Captain  Shandon  gathered 
round  him  to  start  the  gazette  which  was  to 
be  written  by  gentlemen  for  gentlemen.  The 
only  fresh  fault  to  be  found  with  them  is  in 


THE     DAILY     NEWSPAPER 

their  belief  that  everything  about  a  newspaper 
matters  more  than  what  is  written  in  it.  Com- 
position of  a  leading  article  is,  for  instance, 
now  regarded  as  of  minor  importance.  VMiether 
it  shall  be  printed  on  the  first  or  fourth  page 
is,  on  the  contrary,  treated  as  crucial. 

Here  again,  I  see  the  alleged  busy  buyer 
intervening.  As  he  does  not  read,  it  clearly 
matters  little  what  is  written  for  him,  but,  as 
he  has  been  seen  occasionally  to  turn  the  sheets, 
the  question  of  "  make-up  "  is  vital.  Find  a 
way  of  sparing  him  that  trouble,  and  your 
fortune  in  journalism  is  secure.  So  much  atten- 
tion being  devoted  to  this  one  pampered  person- 
age, editors  and  others  have  not  been  required 
as  of  old  to  formulate  definite  policies  in  regard 
to  the  politics  of  the  State.  I  can  still  depend 
on  the  Daily  Telegraph  to  behave  in  all  circum- 
stances with  propriety,  and,  at  least  once  a 
week,  to  bow  to  Buckingham  Palace.  I  can, 
also,  open  the  Morning  Advertiser  in  confidence 
that  it  will  not  have  weakened  on  temperance 
questions.  Elsewhere,  consistency  is  to  seek, 
yet  there  is  a  certain  new  nervousness  in  Fleet 
Street.  One  part  of  its  population  has  long 
played  see-saw  twice  a  day,  but  in  certain  quarters 
there  is  another  tendency  to  be  seen.    There 

199 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

is  an  inclination  to  sit  on  the  fence,  less  because 
it  is  a  fairly  comfortable  seat,  than  because 
of  the  sporting  chance  that  one  may  eventually 
fall  on  the  right  side.  This  nervousness,  this 
taking  thought  for  the  morrow,  is  a  sign  of 
grace.  It  hints  a  new-born  idea  that,  after 
all,  newspapers  are  not  only  printed,  circulated, 
sold,  and  finally  utilized  in  the  by-ways  of 
domestic  economy,  but  may  sometimes  be  read 
and  inwardly  digested.  If  that  idea  can  be 
driven  home,  it  may  occur  anon  to  some  influential 
person  that  they  should  once  again  be  made 
worth  reading.  High  hopes  of  immediate  change 
cannot,  however,  be  built.  Horace  Greeley 
hailing  the  press  as  "  sunbeam  of  truth  "  and 
"  chosen  champion  of  freedom  "  still  seems  one 
half  inflated  fool  and  the  other  half  deflated 
humbug.  The  future  of  the  newspaper  depends 
on  whether  the  next  generation  is  educated  to 
spell  out  sentences  or  to  the  point  of  being  able 
to   read. 


200 


THE  ACTOR-MANAGER 

THE  actor-manager — and  under  this  general 
title  one  must  place  the  prevalent  actress- 
manageress — has  had  a  long  reign.  Without 
troubling  about  archaic  details,  one  can  begin 
to  think  of  him  at  the  period  of  the  Bancrofts, 
for  everybody  knows  what  they  did  for  the  only 
Profession  which  spells  itself  with  a  capital  P. 
They  obtained  it  social  recognition.  Chronicles 
tell  us  how  they  cleared  the  green  room  of  all 
the  old  rogues  and  vagabonds,  and  instituted 
half-guinea  stalls,  from  which  one  portion  of 
well-bred  humanity  could  gaze  upon  another, 
sensible  that,  though  the  footlights  divided  them, 
they  were  united  by  a  bond  of  correctness  in 
clothing,  accent,  and  demeanour.  The  "  poor, 
degraded  stage  "  ceased  to  be  the  occupation  at 
mention  of  which  a  dame  of  right  feeling  must 
draw  her  shawl  about  her  figure  ;  and  in  due 
course  came  the  first  theatrical  knighthood. 
In  public  esteem,  the  theatre  has  been  raised 
almost  to  the  level  of  the  brewery. 

Adam  Smith  once  explained  that  the  "  exorbi- 

201 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

tant  rewards  of  players  "  were  paid  not  only 
for  the  rarity  and  beauty  of  their  talents,  but 
also  as  recompense  for  the  discredit  attached 
to  those  who  offered  them  for  public  hire.  With 
the  sting  of  reproach  removed,  there  was  reason 
to  be  hopeful.  When  actor  and  actress  could 
emerge  proudly  and  by  light  of  day  from  their 
lairs  in  St.  John's  Wood,  it  should  have  followed 
from  the  economist's  theory  that  they  would  be 
almost  supercilious  about  money  matters.  Exiles 
in  Bohemia  they  had  needed  compensations, 
but  now  surely  had  come  the  time  for  high 
thinking  and  plain  living.  In  short,  they  could 
devote  themselves  to  the  advancement  of  art, 
and  for  some  years  audiences  were  hypnotized 
into  believing  that  our  native  genius  had  found 
new  life  in  Robertson's  cup-and-saucer  comedies, 
whilst  the  Lyceum  Shakespeare  was,  of  course, 
given  the  reverence  owed  to  fragmentary  remains 
and  relics  of  the  great  departed.  To  individual 
pieces  Clement  Scott  gave  his  blessing  or  refused 
it,  but  in  an  era  of  general  complacence,  nobody 
suspected  that  things  were  about  to  happen, 
of  which  the  like  had  not  been  seen  since  the 
days  of  Etheldred  the  Redeless.  Then,  Ibsen 
and  the  Vikings  in  their  dragon  ships  came  up 
the    Thames,    with   Mr.    Shaw   for   pilot.     The 

202 


THE      A  C  T  O  R  -  M  A  N  A  G  E  R 

theatre    was    in    labour ;     "  The    Second    Mrs. 
Tanqueray "    was    produced. 

Further  historical  details  are  not  needed. 
Our  actor-managers,  with  carpenters,  costumers 
and  other  allies,  have  rather  carefully  avoided 
making  history,  though  four  or  five  more  knight- 
hoods stand  to  their  credit.  The  hopes  engen- 
dered by  Adam  Smith's  words  scarcely  seem 
to  have  been  fulfilled ;  but,  if  much  money  has 
been  gained,  much  also  has  been  spent.  He 
who  aims  at  becoming  Sir  William  de  Stratford 
suffers,  it  may  be,  from  an  over-developed 
conscience.  He  can  well  be  imagined  saying 
to  himself  that  it  will  not  be  fair  if  the  honour 
fall  on  him  when  he  has  risked  no  more  than 
half  what  his  last  knighted  brother  had  pledged 
to  fortune.  And  so  it  is  no  use  to  present  him 
with  a  play  which  would  be  good  if  it  had  not 
the  cardinal  defect  of  being  inexpensive.  No 
use  to  ask  him  for  a  Shakespeare  without  cuts, 
since  that  would  leave  no  time  for  the  ballets 
and  the  tableaux  and  the  scene-shifting  by  which 
alone  the  gilt  edge  can  be  put  on  Elizabethan 
gold.  Only  if  he  can  feel  that  his  production 
is  the  costliest  in  town  will  he  sleep  in  perfect 
calm.  Awake,  he  lives  like  Damocles,  with 
a  sword  ever  ready  to  fall  on  him.     When  it 

203 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

has  fallen,  quite  gently,  on  his  shoulder,  and  he 
has  been  bidden  rise  as  Sir  William,  he  is  too  old 
or  too  honest  to  change  his  methods.  He  will 
even  spend  a  little  more  than  he  has  spent  before. 
The  old  Puritan  who  cried,  "  Behold  the  sump- 
tuous theatre  houses,  a  continued  monument 
of  London's  prodigality  and  folly,"  was,  of 
course,  an  enemy  to  the  drama ;  yet  its  warmest 
friends  repeat  the  cry  to-day.  Within  the  last 
twenty-five  years  a  number  of  brilliant  plays 
have  been  written,  and,  in  spite  of  everything 
that  is  said  of  low  public  taste,  several  of  them 
have  proved  to  be  commercial  successes,  not, 
perhaps,  of  the  mammoth  type,  but  as  profitable 
as  the  ordinary  bedroom  farce,  which  has  lost 
its  wit  in  crossing  the  Channel.  Although  it 
was  Sir  Herbert  Tree  who  told  us  not  to  despise 
the  valour  of  indiscretion,  it  is  not  to  the  West 
End  managers  that  we  owe  our  first  acquaintance 
with  Shaw,  Houghton,  or  Drinkwater,  to  mention 
only  three  writers  whose  work  has  already  won 
popular  applause.  One  is  tempted  to  question 
whether  Sir  William  and  his  brethren  really 
know  their  own  business  so  much  better  than 
do  the  literary  hotheads  who  offer  them  so  much 
gratuitous  advice.  Hindle  Wakes  can  be  seen 
to-day  on   the    '*  pictures,"   and  I  take  it  that 

204 


THE     A  C  T  O  R  -  M  A  N  A  G  E  R 

admission  to  the  repertory  of  the  cinema  is 
strong  token  of  a  play's  popularity ;  but  it  had 
to  dribble  from  Manchester  to  the  London  stage 
doors  by  way  of  Notting  Hill  and  the  Stage 
Society.  But  your  knight,  or  would-be  knight, 
dare  not  risk  a  shabby  little  failure  in  work-a- 
day  dress.  If  he  is  not  exactly  a  knight  errant, 
he  has  something  of  the  spirit  of  the  Cavalier, 
who,  if  he  had  to  fall,  wished  to  fall  in  purple 
and  fine  linen.  Rather  plaintively  he  tells  us 
from  time  to  time  how  much  he  would  like  to 
do  a  little  crusading,  but  it  is  always  evident 
that  his  apparel  is  in  the  way.  If  he  learnt 
nothing  much  from  Ibsen,  he  at  least  seems  to 
remember  the  moral  of  Dr.  Stockmann's  case, 
that  a  man  should  never  put  on  his  best  trousers 
when  he  goes  out  to  battle  for  truth  and  freedom. 
And  so  he  either  stays  at  home,  or  goes  out  to 
battle  for  something  else. 

In  choice  of  parts,  as  in  choice  of  plays,  lack 
of  acumen  is  often  displayed  by  the  actor- 
manager.  Shakespeare  is  said  to  have  played 
Benvolio  because  he  was  bald  and  had  a  head 
shaped  like  an  eggy  but  one  has  seen  a  modem 
Romeo  whose  only  clear  qualification  was  an 
amorous  imitation  of  Juliet's  habit  of  speaking 
and  saying  nothing — anyhow,  nothing  audible. 

205 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

Also  there  have  been  strange  Falstaffs,  reminis- 
cent only  of  the  man  in  Poe's  story,  who  went 
mad  with  the  idea  he  was  a  pumpkin,  and  per- 
secuted the  cook  to  make  him  into  pies.  But 
I  can  fancy  some  reader  asking  pertinently  why 
so  many  attacks  are  launched  on  poor  Sir 
William,  or  questioning  whether  the  stage  is 
in  worse  state  than,  say,  literature.  In  the  first 
place,  I  would  answer  frankly  that  going  to  the 
theatre  merits  exceptional  rewards,  because  it 
is  accompanied  by  exceptional  penalties.  For 
various  persons  it  may  entail  one  or  more  of 
several  unpleasantnesses,  such  as  booking  seats, 
or  standing  in  a  queue,  changing  clothes,  going 
out  at  night,  realization  of  the  traffic  problem, 
a  too  hastily  eaten  dinner,  deprivation  of  tobacco, 
sitting  next  to  a  young  woman  whose  opinions 
on  life  and  toilettes  one  had  not  originally  paid 
to  hear.  That  is  why  an  indifferent  play  annoys 
one  more  than  a  bad  book,  and  one  reason  why 
actor-managers  are  more  assailed  than  publishers. 
Accidental  trifles  may  make  one's  demands 
more  exacting  in  the  playhouse  than  elsewhere, 
but  the  real  complaint  against  the  actor-manager 
is  that  he  is  by  profession  an  actor.  Of  the 
wholly  commercial  entrepreneur  one  has  no 
right  to  make  a  grievance.     The  box-office  is 

206 


THE      A  C  T  O  R  -  M  A  N  A  G  E  R 

the  all-sufficient  guide  for  him  as  to  whether, 
for  the  nonce,  the  dashing  automata  of  Edmond 
Rostand  shall  hold  the  boards  in  place  of  what 
the  Americans  call  a  girl-and-music  show,  and 
it  is  natural  for  him  to  direct  his  plans  accordingly. 
To  the  artist  turned  administrator  one  cannot 
be  equally  lenient.     Every  one  of  his  offences 
is  assumed  to  be  a  sin  against  the  light  within 
him.     Yet,  when  he  deigns  to  answer  the  fault- 
finders,  he  neither  shows  the  smallest  sign  of 
penitence,  nor  does  he  appeal  to  human  sympathy 
and  humour  with  a  wink       On  the  contrary, 
he  quotes  Shakespeare  for  the  defence,  lets  fall 
the  name  of  Garrick,  poses  as  a  priest  of  deep 
mysteries,  and  speaks  contemptuously  of  literary 
pedants.     To   every  objection   he  has   a  ready 
response,    each    excellent    in    its    way,    though 
perhaps  mutually  destructive  if  taken  together. 
Defending  the  star  system  with  a  phrase  about 
the    "  happy    inequality    of   man,"    he    is    the 
blandest   aristocrat.     Confuting  the   high-brows 
by  a  count  of  seats,  he  is  the  complete  and  in- 
dignant demagogue.     He   is   incurable,  but  the 
cause  of  the  drama  is  not  lost.     Because  there 
are  some  who  still  believe  with  Webster  that 
"  such  vices  as  stand  not  accountable  to  law 
should  be  cm*ed  as  men  heal  tatters,  by  casting 

207 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

ink  upon  them,"   one  must  still  sharpen  pens 
against  him. 

When  rumours  came  from  Moscow  of  the  art 
of  one  Gordon  Craig,  and,  as  the  rumours  grew 
louder,  the  actor-managers  of  London  were 
seen  to  be  pricking  up  their  ears,  somebody 
suggested  that  Sir  William  ought  to  spend 
a  month  abroad  out  of  every  twelve.  Would 
not  eleven  be  better  ?  A  good  deal  of  his  holiday, 
long  or  short,  will  be  spent  in  Paris.  Four 
weeks  will  only  allow  him  time  to  consider 
what  of  the  Palais  Royal  fare  may  be  suitable 
for  adaption,  whereas  in  the  longer  period  he 
could  learn  how  the  French  act  the  pieces  of  his 
choice.  On  his  return  home,  he  would  receive 
an  ovation  which  might  induce  him  for  ever  to 
leave  Shakespeare  alone.  The  strictly  commercial 
producer  would  fill  the  ordinary  bill  quite  capably 
in  his  absence,  and  somebody  else  would  have  a 
better  chance  to  deal  with  such  plays  as  interest 
the   captious    but  not  inconsiderable  minority. 


208 


THE    SUPERMAN 

""YYTHAT  is  the  ape  for  man?     A  laugh- 
▼  ▼      ing  stock  or  a  source  of  painful  shame. 
And  that  is  what  man  must  be  for  the  super- 
man."    There  is  always  a  part  of  the  human 
race  that  enjoys  being  cuffed  as  much  as  another 
part  of  it  enjoys  being  patted.     Even  a  single 
individual  may  read  with  satisfaction  in  Shake- 
speare that  he  has  God-like  apprehension,  and 
half-an-hour  later  be  listening  with  comfort  to 
Dean    Inge.     Perhaps    there    is    in    every    man 
a  consciousness  that  the  buffets  are  meant  not 
for  him  but  for  his  neighbour,  yet  I  fancy  there 
are  some  who  actually  take  pleasure  in  being 
called  worms  of  earth  or  compared  with  chim- 
panzees.   However  that  may  be,  the  average  mor- 
tal was  by  no  means  offended  when  the  German 
professor  whose  words  I  have  quoted  began  to 
preach    Supermanhood     as     the    world's    goal. 
Until  recently  we  accepted  his  teaching  with- 
out protest,  or  only  objected  when  his  country- 
men claimed  a  monopoly  in  superiority.     Only 
from  the  Devil  in  Mr.  Shaw's  play  did  a  word  of 
warning  come.     "  Beware,"    he   said,    "  of  the 

209  o 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

pursuit  of  the  Superman  ;  it  leads  to  an  indis- 
criminate contempt  for  the  human."  As  a  rule 
one  does  not  quote  approvingly  the  sayings 
attributed  to  this  personage,  but  it  has  always 
been  admitted  that  there  are  times  when  he 
should  be  given  his  due,  and  a  Shavian  Devil  is 
exceptional.  I  am  glad  to  think  that  the  human 
element  in  the  world  is  beginning  to  assert 
itself  again,  and  to  wonder  why  it  so  long 
submitted  to  contempt. 

Doubts  exist  as  to  how  and  when  the  idea  of 
the  Superman  was  first  popularised  in  England. 
Some  time  before  Mr.  Shaw  and  Mr.  Wells  had 
won  anything  more  than  literary  recognition, 
the  idea  was  in  the  air.  It  can  be  felt  in  the 
most  widely  read  novels  of  the  late  eighteen- 
nineties.  Seton  Merriman's  romances  abound 
in  strong,  silent  men  who  would  have  been  dull 
dogs  on  the  mortal  plane,  yet  were  accepted  as 
heroes  by  patrons  of  the  circulating  libraries. 
Why  poverty  of  conversation  should  have  been 
taken  as  a  sign  of  genius,  or  of  anything  but  the 
lack  of  something  to  say,  is  beyond  me  ;  but 
taciturnity  was  for  a  while  the  rage.  One  Con- 
tinental celebrity  was  particularly  admired  for 
being  silent  in  seven  languages.  To  chatterers 
whose  tongues  had  never  been  curbed  by  the 

210 


THE    SUPERMAN 

smallness  of  their  own  vocabularies,  he  doubt- 
less appeared  unnatural.  It  needed  but  little 
to  make  him  seem  supernatural. 

More  sophisticated  portions  of  society  were 
soon  to  be  prepared  for  the  coming  of  our  con- 
querors. Gradually  they  were  accustomed  to 
the  mention  of  Nietzsche,  but  the  rising  sun 
of  the  Far  East  at  first  attracted  more  attention. 
Strange  Oriental  words  began  to  creep  into  the 
English  language.  A  little  earlier,  Japan  had 
been  the  provider  of  tasteful  crockery  for  deca- 
dent tea-drinkers,  and  a  little  later  she  was  to 
be  a  dangerous  competitor  in  textiles,  but  for 
the  time  being  her  export  was  the  heroic  theory. 
Pedagogues  inculcated  the  manly  virtues  by 
calling  their  pupils'  attention  to  her  knightly 
code,  and  a  fair  judgment  of  a  man's  age  can 
still  be  made  when  one  has  heard  whether  he 
was  brought  up  on  Japan  or  Sparta.  In  the 
sixth  form  and  at  the  universities  the  new  cult 
brought  glory  and  some  satisfaction  to  those 
who  followed  it.  It  not  only  excused,  but 
positively  ordained,  a  thoroughly  cavalier  treat- 
ment of  fags,  freshmen,  and  anybody  who  did 
not  happen  to  be  in  one's  own  exclusive  set. 
Vulgarly,  one  might  be  called  "  blood,"  "  athle- 
tocrat,"  or  whatever  else  envy  dictated  to  those 

211 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

whose  socks  and  souls  were  invariably  of  the 
wrong  shade,  but  from  socks  to  soul  one  knew 
that  one  belonged  to  the  Samurai. 

The  newness  of  this  new  aristocracy  was  a 
point  always  emphasized.  Its  members  were 
quick  to  deny  any  mental  relationship  with  the 
Came-over-with-the-Conqueror  people  whose  pre- 
tensions had  already  worn  threadbare.  Theore- 
tically, one  might  be  a  new  aristocrat  and  a 
boot-black,  but  in  practice  it  was  well  to  have 
an  unearned  income,  since  the  right  spending  of 
it  could  take  so  much  of  one's  time  and  thought. 
It  was  not  always  a  path  of  roses  for  the  young 
Samurai ;  floral  carelessness  in  life  was  not 
for  them.  Supermanhood  denied  that  the  lower 
orders  had  any  rights,  but  on  itself  it  imposed 
duties.  How  to  be  in  the  forefront  of  Bond 
Street's  fashions  without  encouraging  anybody 
in  an  unproductive  occupation  was  just  one 
of  the  troubles  to  be  faced  earnestly.  How  to 
be  "  equestrian  "  whilst  driving  the  most  power- 
ful Panhard  then  on  the  market  was  another. 
The  hushido  of  the  adolescent  Englishman  was 
a  very  complicated  business. 

The  really  serious  difficulty,  however,  lay  in 
the  fact  that  none  could  settle  satisfactorily 
how   the    new   class    should    be   recruited.     No 

212 


THE    SUPERMAN 

sooner  had  hereditary  principles  been  rejected 
than  a  new  set  of  hereditary  principles  had  to 
be  adopted.  If  man  was  something  that  had 
to  be  surpassed,  one  had  to  think  about  breeding 
Supermen.  A  commonplace  of  debate  was  the 
future  government  of  the  country  by  a  House 
of  Lords  with  scientifically  selected  pedigrees. 
In  the  literature  of  the  subject,  such  words 
as  "  wife  "  and  "  marriage  "  were  seldom  used, 
but  "  mate  "  and  "  mating  "  were  of  constant 
occurrence.  A  due  regard  for  coming  genera- 
tions was  thus  displayed,  but  the  needs  of  the 
present  were  not  wholly  forgotten.  Several  edu- 
cational establishments  began  to  announce  that 
they  had  a  staff  of  experts  in  teaching  the  art 
of  aggression.  Specimen  testimonals  showed  how, 
after  a  course  of  twelve  postal  lessons,  an  office- 
boy  could  glare  a  managing  director  into  giving 
him  a  rise  of  five  shillings  weekly,  and  how 
hitherto  unsuccessful  men  of  letters  had  brow- 
beaten editors  into  refusing  columns  of  adver- 
tisement in  order  to  make  space  for  their  effu- 
sions. What  happened  when  two  fully  trained 
aggressors  met  each  other  was  always  matter 
for  speculation,  but,  though  these  educational 
ladders  all  led  to  supermanhood,  their  lure  was 
mainly  for  those  who,  at  the  beginning  of  the 

213 


ABOUT         IT       AND        ABOUT 

ascent,  possessed  middle-class  minds.  Others 
neglected  them  from  a  mastering  conviction 
that  they  themselves  were  premature  births 
of  the  awaited  master  race.  Disdaining  the  old 
fetish  of  representative  institutions,  the  new 
aristocrats  assumed  the  purple  and  its  privi- 
leges after  having  quite  simply  selected  them- 
selves. 

Many  of  them  were,  and  still  may  be,  heroes 
to  their  valets.  It  would  be  hard  to  think  of 
any  other  class  of  beings  in  whose  estimation 
their  stock  has  not  sunk,  but  at  the  outbreak  of 
war  we  were  all  more  or  less  under  their  thrall. 
"  Wanted,  a  Man  "  was  a  cry  which  revealed 
our  confidence  that  the  Supermen  were  ready 
and  waiting  for  the  invitation  to  save  us.  For 
a  while  the  public  saw  none  but  Lord  Kitchener. 
That  he  was  a  capable  soldier  and  an  excellent 
organizer,  is  generally  agreed,  but  his  supre- 
macy was  not  due  to  the  qualities  he  is  now 
granted.  The  public  was  awed  by  his  reputa- 
tion for  silence.  His  colleagues  were  over-awed 
because  he  could  silence  others.  Since  those 
days  we  have  seen  pass  the  train  of  his  successors. 
Lord  Northcliffe,  voluble  in  seven — or  seventy  — 
newspapers,  followed  by  force  of  reaction,  and 
Lord  Beaverbrook,  last  of  the  Canadian  barons, 

214 


THE    SUPERMAN 

had  his  spell  of  fame.  Sir  Auckland  Geddes, 
fearlessly  changing  "  definite  "  into  "definitive," 
and  then  burning  the  pen,  has  finally  proved 
how.  far  the  supermind  can  soar  beyond  our 
weaker    understanding. 

Germany,  too,  has  had  a  long  list  of  Super- 
men. She  deserved  them,  but  it  revives  my 
belief  in  German  good-nature  to  note  how  many 
of  them  are  being  allowed  to  write  their  own 
epitaphs.  War  was  thought  to  be  the  one  thing 
necessary  to  show  the  world  the  worth  of  the 
higher  intelligence,  of  the  esprit  fort.  The  old, 
old  story  was  told  again  ;  only  the  exceptional 
beings,  the  Alexanders,  Oesars,  and  Napoleons, 
ever  made  history.  Curiously  enough,  the  war 
has  served  to  restore  faith  in  democracy.  In 
all  the  armies,  common  soldiers  and  obscure 
regimental  officers  acquitted  themselves  with 
more  than  ordinary  credit.  Thousands  of  un- 
distinguished civilians  evinced  capacity  in  their 
limited  spheres  of  influence.  Only  in  the  higher 
commands,  military  and  civil,  did  ordeal  by  battle 
find  many  weak  spots.  Faith  in  democracy, 
by  the  way,  need  not  mean  faith  restored  to 
any  particular  one  of  its  sects.  From  the  Super- 
man's standpoint,  Mr.  Walter  Long  is  even 
more  hopelessly  of  the  crowd  than  is  Mr.  Lans- 

215 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

bury,  and  of  all  those  whose  names  Sir  Bernard 
Burke  so  carefully  catalogues,  there  were  never 
more  than  a  dozen  or  two  standing  head  and 
shoulders  above  the  masses.  Even  Mr.  Wells, 
in  whose  New  Utopia,  the  Superman  played  so 
large  a  part,  has  gone  far  towards  recantation. 
I  shall  always  remember  that  monstrously  effi- 
cient individual  in  The  Research  Magnificent, 
who  would  not  take  a  walking  tour  in  Surrey 
without  "  several  sheets  of  the  ordnance  map," 
yet  so  nearly  caught  a  severe  chill  through  for- 
getting that  the  English  climate  in  April  does  not 
allow  one  to  sleep  with  impunity  under  nothing 
but  the  stars.  What  better  illustration  could 
one  have  of  the  supermind's  blind  side  ?  And 
yet,  as  another  Shavian  character  said  in  answer 
to  the  Devil,  "  the  superman  is  a  fine  concep- 
tion ;  there  is  something  statuesque  about  it." 
I  wonder  whether  the  statue  with  which  for  all 
future  time  we  shall  connect  it,  will  not  be  the 
wooden  idol  of  Hindenburg,  decaying  in  Berlin  ? 


216 


THE    DOMESTIC    SERVANT 

CERTAIN  ghosts  there  are  which  trouble  us 
by  too  often  appearing ;  others  can  only 
be  evoked  with  extreme  difficulty  and  by  con- 
jurations and  sacrifices.  To  the  latter  class 
belongs  the  domestic  servant.  She,  for  it  is 
with  the  female  of  the  species  that  most  of  us 
are  concerned,  like  others  of  the  genus  ghost, 
is  peculiarly  shy  of  suburban  villas,  country 
cottages,  and  the  smaller  flats,  showing  some 
preference  for  the  statelier  homes  of  England, 
where,  presumably,  she  can  be  more  bounteously 
entertained.  Sceptics  aver  that  she  does  not 
exist  at  all,  but  their  denial  is  in  the  main  cyni- 
cism. Others  affirm  that,  after  due  invocation, 
she  has  appeared  to  them  in  the  likeness  of  that 
efreet  in  the  Arabian  Nights,  whose  hands  were 
as  winnowing-forks,  and  that  they,  like  the 
King's  daughter,  have  cried,  "  No  welcome  to 
thee,"  and  have  engaged  with  her  in  mortal 
combat. 

By  legend,  picture,  and  tradition,  it  is  proved 
that  she  once  existed  in  the  flesh.     It  has  been 

217 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

handed  down  by  our  mothers  that  she  per- 
formed a  number  of  useful  functions,  and  com- 
parison of  her  storied  past  with  modern  instances 
is  conclusive  in  showing  that  the  being  with 
whom  we  have  to  deal  now  is  at  best  but  a  wraith. 
Her  departure  from  mortal  life  is  mourned  by 
many.  Those  who  seem  to  have  been  the  most 
to  blame  for  it  are  often  loudest  in  their  lamenta- 
tions. Approaching  the  question  with  an  open 
mind,  one  cannot  deny  that  the  whole  business 
of  the  domestic  servant  has  for  a  long  time 
been  abominably  managed.  A  few  years  ago 
it  could  have  been  cited  with  equal  effect  on  the 
platforms  of  Mrs.  Pankhurst  and  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward.  To  the  party  of  the  former  it  would 
have  served  as  a  strong  argument  to  rebut  the 
contention  that  woman's  proper  sphere  of  activity 
was  in  the  home,  whilst  the  anti-suffragists  might 
surely  have  claimed  that  as  women  had  failed 
in  control  of  the  one  department  entrusted  to 
their  care,  further  extension  of  power  was  likely 
to  be  disastrous. 

Idyllic  tales  of  domestic  bliss  in  bygone  times 
must  be  taken  with  some  caution.  The  majority 
of  them  merely  express  the  opinions  of  employers, 
and  even  the  employers  were  far  from  unanimous. 
Strife  between  mistress  and  maid  began  with  their 

218 


THE         DOMESTIC         SERVANT 

first  relations,  but,  as  long  as  the  demand  for 
women's  labour  was  limited  to  few  callings,  the 
mistress  had,  in  more  than  a  figurative  sense, 
the  whip  hand.  Thomas  Fuller,  a  worthy  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  left  it  on  record  as  a 
proverb  that  England  was  the  purjratory  of  ser- 
vants. We  know  how  during  the  Fire  of  London 
Mr.  Pepys  had  time  to  be  incensed  against  the 
girl  Mercer  who,  without  formality  of  notice, 
had  fled  to  her  mother's  house,  and  how  Mrs. 
Pepys  tracked  her,  soundly  beat,  and  finally 
dismissed  her.  A  few  years  afterwards  Mrs. 
Hannah  Wolley  in  her  Guide  to  the  Female  Sex 
was  deploring  that  in  "  this  depraved  later 
age  "  the  tide  of  corruption  and  self-indulgence 
had  overtaken  Abigail,  whilst  CoUey  Cibber 
flatly  stated  that  "  in  all  the  necessaries  of  life 
there  is  not  a  greater  plague  than  servants." 

The  cloud  of  witnesses  could  easily  be  increased, 
but  from  all  the  evidence  only  two  conclusions 
can  be  drawn.  In  the  first  place  it  will  be  noted 
that  at  no  given  moment  of  history  are  servants 
ever  as  good  as  they  have  been.  Secondly, 
that  whilst  they  were  yet  comparatively  good, 
no  right  steps  were  taken  either  to  improve 
them  or  to  keep  them  as  they  were.  The  chas- 
tisements   of   Mrs.    Pepys    were    as    ineffective 

219 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

as  the  catechizings  of  the  Countess  of  Warwick, 
her  Puritan  contemporary.  Nobody  seems  to 
have  reahzed  that  the  combination  of  body  and 
soul  in  cook  or  housemaid  did  actually  make  the 
sum  total  of  a  human  being.  On  the  contrary, 
it  was  widely  and  notoriously  held  that  a  good 
servant's  three  properties  were  the  back  of  an 
ass,  the  tongue  of  a  sheep,  and  the  snout  of  a 
swine.  The  very  word  servant,  sharing  common 
ancestry  with  the  adjective  servile,  is  objection- 
able, and  it  has  certainly  not  been  bettered  in 
the  modern  slang  of  slut,  salt,  or  skivvy.  The 
French  bonrWy  with  its  amiable,  even  flattering, 
suggestion,  is  altogether  pleasanter,  though 
whether  it  could  be  truthfully  applied  to-day  is 
another  matter.  Maybe  the  German  Poltergeist  is 
the  correct  designation  for  sundry  domestic  assis- 
tants by  whom  the  twentieth-century  house-wife  is 
haunted.  Maids  they  may  be  called  by  courtesy  ; 
servants  by  custom  ;  domestics  by  irony. 

Whether  even  now  the  human  side  of  the 
question  is  fully  understood  is  doubtful.  Miss 
Honeyman,  in  The  Newcomes,  had  a  curious 
habit  of  calling  all  her  servants  Sally,  in  com- 
plete disregard  for  the  expressed  wishes  of  their 
god-parents.  She  was  a  dear  old  lady.  One 
reads  of  her  that  she  admired  the  word  gentle- 

220 


THE         DOMESTIC        SERVANT 

woman  more  than  any  other  in  the  language, 
and  made  all  around  her  feel  that  such  was  her 
rank.  One  cannot  imagine  that  she  would  have 
willingly  wounded  the  feelings  of  any  living 
creature,  yet  among  the  trivial  things  of  life  I 
know  none  more  annoying  than  to  be  called 
by  a  name  other  than  one's  own.  It  grates  when 
it  implies  confusion  with  another  person ;  it 
grates  more  if  it  means  that  one  is  merged  in  the 
speaker's  imagination  with  the  class  to  which 
one  belongs,  since  all  classes,  as  their  members 
know,  are,  taking  them  in  a  lump,  bad.  Miss 
Honeyman,  at  the  worst,  was  thoughtless,  but 
recent  correspondence  in  the  newspapers  shows 
that  a  new  generation  of  employers  shares  her 
failing.  Violet,  Petunia,  and  Keren-Hapuch  have 
all  written  to  express  their  indignation  that  on 
entering  "  service  "  they  have  been  deprived  of 
their  baptismal  names  and  dubbed  Mary  Anne 
or  Jane.  Sensitive,  class-conscious  imaginations 
have  seen  here  an  affront.  Their  names,  they 
fancied,  did  not  accord  with  the  humility  ex- 
pected of  retainers,  and  the  change  was  designed 
to  take  them  down  a  peg  or  two.  I  am  not  sure 
that  they  were  wrong.  Snobbery  comes  near  to 
being  chief  and  most  cherished  of  our  national 
vices. 

221 


ABOUT         IT       AND        ABOUT 

Another  point  of  difference  lately  made  public 
is  the  question  of  dress.  The  maid  servant  is 
in  revolt  against  the  wearing  of  cap  and  apron, 
and  a  wall  of  solid  opposition  here  faces  her. 
The  mistress,  when  approached  on  this  subject 
invariably  sidetracks  discussion  by  saying  that 
this  changeless  uniform  is  most  becoming  to 
its  wearer.  She  talks,  in  fact,  as  though  she  were 
the  most  masculine  of  uncomprehending  males. 
On  any  night  in  the  week  cast  an  eye  on  the 
chronicles  of  Corisande  in  The  Evening  Standard, 
or  the  musings  of  Olivette  in  The  Evening  News, 
and  you  will  discover  that  what  is  becoming  is 
only  a  secondary  consideration  in  woman's  wear. 
Novelty  is  much  more  important.  No  two  Eng- 
lish words  go  more  easily  together  than  change 
and  fashion,  and,  indeed,  without  the  first  one 
would  scarcely  gather  what  the  other  meant. 
George  Morland's  painting  of  "  The  Family  Maid  " 
is  a  charming  and  beautiful  picture,  though  in 
some  "  places  "  exception  would  be  taken  to 
the  decollete  style  of  her  gown,  but  it  is  none 
the  less  true  that  the  uniform  of  cap  and  apron 
has  long  ceased  to  satisfy  those  who  are  supposed 
to  wear  it.  As  Signor  Marinetti  said  of  Parsifal 
and  the  tango,  "  ce  n'est  plus  chic."  Is  not 
Abigail  also  a  daughter  of  Eve  ? 

222 


THE        DOMESTIC         SERVANT 

Wages  and  hours  of  work  have  never  been  at 
the  bottom  of  the  difficulty,  so  one  need  not 
dwell  on  them.  In  other  occupations  they  have 
caused  grumbling,  unrest,  strikes,  but  they  have 
never  brought  about  the  disappearance  of  a  whole 
class  of  workers,  and,  despite  occasional  appari- 
tions, it  is  clear  that  the  domestic  servant  is 
likely  soon  to  be  as  extinct  as  the  dodo.  Is  it 
too  late  to  recall  her  to  life  ?  At  least  for  the 
sake  of  the  aged  and  infirm,  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  something  can  be  done.  There  is  nothing 
particularly  degrading  or  unpleasant  about  house- 
hold labours,  but  if  they  are  to  attract  the  young 
women  who  have  tasted  liberty  they  must  be 
ordered  with  more  sympathy  than  even  the 
modern  Mrs.  Pepys  seems  willing  to  show.  In 
that  quality  the  very  best  mistresses  always 
seem  to  have  been  lacking.  Moreover,  the  hos- 
tility of  an  old  feud  still  lingers.  "  Do  not 
rashly  believe  a  wife  complaining  of  servants," 
wrote  Dionysius  Cato  in  an  early  century  of  our 
Christian  era.  Dare  one  venture  to  suggest 
that  the  hour  has  struck  for  male  intervention  ? 
Men  never  understand  women  ;  women  under- 
stand women  just  well  enough  to  dislike  each 
other. 


228 


THE    HOUSE    OF    LORDS 

LORD  ACTON  once  praised  the  House  of 
Lords  for  its  "  wish  to  carry  into  the 
future  the  things  of  the  past,"  and  for  its  "capa- 
city to  keep  aloof  from  the  strife  and  aims  of  the 
present  hour."  With  variations,  his  words  are 
still  used  by  our  cautious  constitutionalists  when- 
ever the  mending  or  ending  of  the  second  cham- 
ber is  mooted,  and  they  still  carry  weight.  After 
the  barbarism  of  war,  some  of  us  are  more  than 
ever  inclined  to  cling  to  our  old  civilization. 
When  Mr.  Tom  Mann  tells  me  that  Parliaments 
have  served  their  purpose,  all  the  bourgeois 
blood  in  me  runs  cold,  and  I  begin  to  ask  for  the 
shelter  of  serried  ranks  of  coroneted  persons, 
yet  on  second  thoughts  I  realize  that  they  form 
a  dangerous  salient  in  our  line  of  defence.  I 
do  not  know  if  anybody  has  yet  noticed  the 
inverted  resemblance,  but  a  Soviet  is  simply  a 
House  of  Lords  turned  upside  down.  The  House 
of  Lords  implies  government  by  one  privileged 
class  ;  the  Soviet  simply  means  government  by 
another.  He  who  pleads  for  the  first  will  before 
long  find  himself  inadvertently  pleading  for  the 

224 


THE       HOUSE       OF       LORDS 

other,  and  it  is  safer  for  those  who  would  preserve 
a  Hnk  with  the  past  to  remember  that  there  is 
also  a  House  of  Commons,  a  fairly  venerable 
institution,  which  needs  their  aid  against  the 
raging  heathen.  In  Asquithian  days,  defenders 
of  the  Upper  House  habitually  belittled  the 
Lower,  and  I  hope  they  are  pleased  when  they  hear 
their  taunts  echoed  by  the  platforms  of  the 
extreme  left. 

Quite  possibly  they  do  not  hear  them  at  all. 
The  capacity  of  the  peers  to  keep  aloof  from  the 
strife  and  aims  of  the  hour  is  truly  wonderful, 
but  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  a  good  recommenda- 
tion for  them.  It  may  account  for  more  than  one 
mistake  they  have  made.  One  ingenuous  scribe 
has  written  that  their  chamber  is  to  the  living 
what  Westminster  Abbey  is  to  the  dead,  and  we 
have  recently  heard  Viscount  Astor's  protest 
against  his  premature  burial.  The  atmosphere 
of  funereal  pomp  and  monumental  dignity  is 
inimical  to  sympathy  between  governors  and 
governed.  I  am  almost  afraid  that  it  will  be 
as  difficult  for  me  to  interest  my  readers  in  a 
discussion  on  the  gilded  chamber  and  its  occu- 
pants as  in  a  dissertation  on  extinct  volcanoes. 

For  months  on  end  we  live  in  forgetfulness  of 
the  House  of  Lords.     Even  when  in  session,  its 

225  P 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

debates  rarely  receive  more  than  a  brief  notice 
in  the  Press.  In  one  way  and  another  its  indi- 
vidual members  are  brought  more  or  less  pro- 
minently before  the  public  by  their  births,  deaths, 
marriages,  and  divorces,  or  by  their  activities 
in  philanthropy,  philosophy,  war,  trade,  and 
sport,  but  as  legislators  they  seldom  trouble  us. 
They  do  not,  you  see,  seek  notoriety  after  the 
fashion  of  low-born  demagogues.  Only  on  great 
occasions  do  they  assert  themselves ;  only  at 
hours  of  crisis  do  they  muster  in  force.  Usually 
they  are  content  to  be  represented  at  West- 
minster by  about  a  fifth  of  their  number,  who  them- 
selves ordinarily  refrain  from  doing  more  than 
move  mild  amendments  to  measures  in  which 
the  public  is  profoundly  uninterested.  Their 
modest  abnegation  is  a  perpetual  surprise  to 
foreigners,  but  to  us  others  its  purpose  should 
be  evident.  Whilst  the  House  of  Lords  is  doing 
nothing  in  particular,  we  are  almost  all  agreed 
that  it  is  doing  it  very  well,  and  we  let  sleeping 
peers  lie. 

The  adventure  with  the  "  People's  Budget " 
was  so  calamitous  that  it  gave  their  lordships  a 
lesson  in  circumspect  behaviour.  If  ever  they 
call  attention  to  themselves  to-day,  it  is  to  pro- 
claim their  impotence.     "  Look  at  us,"  they  say. 

226 


THE       HOUSE        OF       LORDS 

"  How  fallen  from  our  high  estate  1  How  power- 
less to  protect  you  from  the  unfaithful  Commons ! " 
Every  now  and  then  the  need  for  a  stronger 
second  chamber  is  impressed  on  us  by  persons 
whose  passion  for  the  Constitution  at  home  is 
only  matched  by  their  zeal  for  military  dictator- 
ship abroad,  and  we  are  warned  that  since  the 
Parliament  Act  there  has  been  nothing,  absolutely 
nothing,  between  us  and  the  ruinous  passions  of 
the  multitude.  Many  a  good  citizen  must  often 
awake  in  a  tremble  at  thought  of  a  bulwark 
destroyed,  and  yet,  if  he  will  examine  the  matter 
coldly,  he  may  discover  that  the  Upper  House 
has  not  been  quite  as  idle  and  as  feeble  as  its 
friends  and  members  would  have  him  believe. 
The  case  of  Ireland  is  very  much  to  the  point. 
Had  it  not  been  for  the  lordly  function  of  delay 
the  Home  Rule  Act  would  have  been  in  force 
before  either  the  Kaiser  or  Carson  could  dis- 
turb the  peace.  Sinn  Fein  would  still  be  eluci- 
dating early  Gaelic  texts.  John  Redmond  might 
still  be  alive,  and  living  would  be  the  firm  friend 
of  England  and  the  League  of  Nations.  Three 
years  of  licensed  obstruction  were  long  enough 
to  make  England  again  too  late,  and  to  give  red 
revolution  its  chance.  Blame  the  Westminster 
Abbey  atmosphere  if  you  will. 

227 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

Not  yet  has  the  time  come  when  the  House  of 
Lords  should  be  either  forgotten  or  forgiven. 
Although  its  head  may  be  buried  in  the  sand, 
it  is  foolish  to  forget  its  presence.  It  is  still 
strong  enough  to  do  us  harm,  and  it  is  also 
weak  enough  to  do  us  harm.  Few  maintain  to- 
day that  it  in  any  way  approaches  the  ideal  of 
a  second  chamber.  Mendel's  law  has  shattered 
the  faith  which  our  simple  ancestors  placed  in 
a  hereditary  legislature.  Mendel  may  have  been 
just  as  fallible  as  the  rest  of  our  law-givers,  but 
his  theories  have  been  so  widely  accepted  that 
we  cannot  altogether  ignore  them.  Heredity, 
according  to  him,  is  a  much  trickier  business 
than  we  used  to  think  it.  Except  in  the  art  of 
legislation  we  no  longer  affect  to  put  any  trust 
in  it.  We  know  that  Lord  Hawke  used  to  be  a 
first-class  cricketer,  but  we  never  expected  him 
to  command  the  North  Sea  Fleet.  We  know 
that  the  Duke  of  Leeds  is  descended  from  a 
draper,  and  the  Earl  of  Dudley  from  a  goldsmith, 
but  we  feel  no  confidence  that  they  would  "  make 
good  "  at  their  ancestral  trades.  Before  long,  of 
course,  England  may  see  certain  of  its  noble 
lords  displaying  marked  talents  for  musical 
comedy  or  amassing  dollars,  but  in  no  individual 
case  would  it  be  safe  to  bet  on  such  a  reversion. 

228 


THE       HOUSE        OF        LORDS 

Cecils  and  Churchills  with  the  characteristics 
of  their  great  progenitors  are,  indeed,  amongst 
us  now,  but  even  these  modern  instances  afford 
no  help  to  defenders  of  the  peerage.  Whilst 
the  family  titles  have  descended  according  to 
the  law  of  primogeniture,  the  abilities  which 
should  have  accompanied  them  have  most  in- 
considerately cropped  up  in  the  cadet  branches. 
Since  Haselrigg,  stout  republican  as  he  was, 
declared  his  preference  for  an  Upper  House 
whose  members  "  depended  on  themselves,"  the 
hereditary  principle  has  never  lacked  its  cham- 
pions. Under  pressure,  they  admit  that  the 
peers  may  be  dull  fellows,  but,  say  they,  the 
secxu-e  tenure  of  their  seats  gives  them  indepen- 
dence. Calmly,  and  without  truckling  to  the 
mob,  they  can  plan  their  country's  good.  Were 
this  the  whole  truth,  I  should  have  nothing  more 
to  say,  but  somewhere  in  the  argument  I  sus- 
pect a  suppresio  veri.  Is  a  peer's  independ- 
ence really  greater  than  mine  or  the  next  man's  ? 
True,  that  he  has  no  need  to  go  seeking  votes,  but 
there  are  some  persons,  notably  his  banker,  to 
whom  he  is  in  tight  bondage.  When  our  great 
soldiers  and  sailors  are  ennobled,  grants  have  to 
be  made  to  them  lest  their  progeny  should  bring 
their  titles  into  disrepute  by  poverty,  and  these 

229 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

"  signal  marks  of  favour  "  seem  to  be  arranged 
strictly  on  a  scale  of  rank.  To  each  of  the  two 
earldoms  created  for  active  services  in  the  late 
war  a  sum  of  £100,000  was  allotted,  and  half 
that  sum  to  each  of  the  three  viscountcies, 
whilst  the  four  military  barons  had  to  content 
themselves  with  £30,000  a  piece.  The  figures 
speak  for  themselves. 

Lord  Morley  of  Blackburn  would,  I  fancy, 
be  yet  a  commoner  if  he  had  not  been  childless. 
He,  it  was  realized,  would  to  the  end  of  his 
days  be  able  to  live  in  circumstances  which,  if 
not  luxurious,  would  not  be  exactly  penurious, 
but  grandchildren  of  a  man  of  his  means  might 
easily  become  bank-clerks,  and  their  offspring 
fall  to  manual  labour.  The  House  of  Lords 
and  all  those  who  maintain  it  understand  that 
it  can  only  exist  on  its  present  basis  as  long  as 
its  members  "  keep  up  appearances."  More  than 
most  sections  of  the  community,  they  are  bound 
hand  and  foot  to  money.  When  poverty  comes 
in  at  the  window  of  a  noble  mansion,  it  is  the 
recognized  duty  of  heir  or  owner  to  bring  in  an 
heiress  at  the  door,  so  can  we  expect  a  peer's 
vote  to  be  freer  than  his  choice  of  a  bride  ?  Were 
any  large  section  of  the  peerage  to  let  appear- 
ances and  the  wherewithal  go  hang,  the  lower 

280 


THE   HOUSE   OF   LORDS 

middle  classes  would  cease  to  bow  and  the  days 
of  the  Lords  would  be  done. 

Wealth,  even  if  it  be  only  the  modest  wealth 
which  can  keep  neither  a  steam  yacht  nor  a 
racing  stable,  is  the  corner-stone  of  the  Upper 
House.  Let  us  have  done  with  talking  of  in- 
dependence, and  examine  another  witness  for 
the  defence.  Experience,  I  am  told,  has  proved 
some  sort  of  second  chamber  to  be  advisable. 
Incidentally,  it  also  shows  ours  to  be  by  no  means 
the  most  maleficent  in  the  world.  Cromwell 
called  a  unicameral  legislature,  "  the  horridest 
tyranny  that  ever  was,"  but,  of  course,  he  had 
no  prevision  of  the  United  States  Senate.  The 
tyrannies  and  follies  of  majorities  are  deplorable, 
but  they  are  as  nothing  to  those  of  minorities. 
If  the  people  of  Yorkshire  were  to  show  a  brutal 
disregard  for  the  lawful  aspirations  of  the  people 
of  Rutland,  I  should  protest  against  such  injus- 
tice, but  were  the  positions  to  be  reversed  I 
should  feel  that  frantic  absurdity  had  intensified 
the  wrong.  In  America,  however,  they  put  up 
with  that  sort  of  thing  daily,  and  in  their  Senate 
the  broad,  but  mostly  uninhabited  acres  of 
Wyoming  and  Nevada  can  at  any  time  defy  the 
population  of  New  York  or  Pennsylvania.  Of 
course,  it  is  their  own  affair,  but  I  do  not  think 

231 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

we  shall  imitate  their  "  masterpiece  of  the 
constitution  makers."  Any  sort  of  Senate, 
however,  has,  I  suppose,  to  be  accepted  as 
better   than   no   Senate  at   all. 

The  ideal  second  chamber  does  not  exist, 
and  I  doubt  whether  one  can  be  devised,  but, 
having  written  on  the  House  of  Lords,  I  shall  be 
expected  to  produce  a  scheme  for  its  reform. 
Let  us  agree  with  Cromwell  that  one  chamber 
is  not  enough,  and  think  experimentally.  What 
about  a  Senate  with  an  educational  test  for 
candidates  and  voters  ?  I  am  not  sure  whether 
I  did,  or  did  not,  originally  draw  this  idea 
from  Gilbert  and  Sullivan,  but,  anyhow,  I  am 
not  ashamed  of  it.  I  did  not  adopt  it  until  I 
had  compared  it  with  the  senatorial  systems  of 
several  countries,  and  had  found  it  less  ridiculous 
than  most.  In  Britain,  Sweden,  and  the  Nether- 
lands, the  qualification  is  monetary.  In  France 
and  Italy  it  appears  to  be  approaching  senility. 
In  Norway  it  is  hygienic — ^the  voter  shows  his 
vaccination  marks.  Under  the  scheme  I  have 
elaborated  from  Strephon's  sketch,  all  voters 
must  be  up  to  matriculation  standard,  and  candi- 
dates would  have  to  show  themselves  capable 
of  taking  at  least  a  pass  degree  in  some  subject 
of    their    own    selection.     The    main    difficulty 

232 


THE       HOUSE       OF       LORDS 

would  be  to  secure  impartial  examiners.  Could 
we  expect  Mr.  J.  A.  R.  Marriott  to  be  quite  fair 
when  marking  Professor  Gilbert  Murray's  paper 
on  the  "  Growth  of  the  British  Empire "  ? 
And  if  the  roles  were  changed  would  not  Pro- 
fessor Murray  find  himself  in  an  unpleasant 
position  between  the  devil  of  imperialism  and 
the  deep  sea  of  temptation  ?  I  see  the  flaws  in 
my  proposal,  but  willingness  to  prepare  for  the 
examinations,  and  to  sit  for  them,  would  be 
splendid  proof  of  civism.  Perhaps  the  chief 
merit  of  the  scheme  is  that  it  will  never  be  put 
into  practice. 


233 


THE    PUBLIC    HOUSE 

OVER  no  English  institution  could  the  word 
"  Ichabod  "  be  more  aptly  written  than 
over  the  Public  House.  Our  taverns  and  inns, 
with  their  richly  storied  past,  should  command 
from  us  something  more  than  common  respect, 
and  we  ought  to  be  able  to  grant  it  them  with- 
out regard  to  our  taste  in  drinks.  Agnostics 
and  Seventh-Day  Adventists  unite  in  instinc- 
tive reverence  for  the  old  cathedrals  wherein 
their  common  ancestors  have  worshipped,  and 
those  who  prefer  water  to  the  stronger  liquors 
should,  with  the  rest,  be  able  to  honour  those 
hostelries  wherein  so  much  of  our  native  genius 
was  nurtured.  Pious  pilgrims  from  America, 
reared  on  legends  of  Tabard,  Mermaid,  and  Blue 
Boar,  visit  our  inns  as  dutifully  as  they  visit 
Westminster  and  Stratford-on-Avon.  If,  in  the 
end,  they  go  home  more  resolute  than  ever  to 
support  prohibition,  who  can  wonder  ? 

My  comparison  of  church  with  ale-house 
may  in  these  days  seem  to  smack  of  profanity, 
but  such  was  not  always  the  current  view.  An 
actual  bond  between  the  two  used  not  to  be 

234, 


THE        PUBLIC        HOUSE 

considered  scandalous,  nor  was  it  limited  to  the 
urgent  task  of  returning  to  Parliament  a  candi- 
date favourable  to  both  their  interests.  In  him- 
dreds  of  parishes  brewing  was  under  the  super- 
intendence of  the  clergy  and  the  wardens.  It  was 
the  duty  of  the  latter  to  buy  malt  for  the  wakes, 
and  of  the  former  to  see  to  it  that  at  feasts  of  the 
church  the  ale  was  well  and  wisely  consumed. 
As  the  ensuing  profits  were  commonly  set  aside 
for  the  relief  of  the  poor,  the  arrangement  seems 
to  have  suited  everybody.  In  further  proof  of 
the  lively  interest  taken  by  those  of  godly  life 
in  the  bodily  welfare  of  the  laity,  retailers  of 
the  liquor  which  made  glad  the  heart  of  Eng- 
lishmen were  under  the  specially  benevolent 
protection  of  St.  Theodotus  who,  prior  to  his 
martyrdom,  had  himself  been  a  member  of 
"the  Trade." 

Only  in  our  own  times  has  the  idea  of  a  "  dry  " 
England  come  even  on  the  borderland  of  practical 
pohtics,  but  the  degradation  of  licensed  victual- 
ling has  been  a  long  process.  It  began  soon 
after  the  Reformation,  and  the  stern,  strict 
zealots  of  the  next  century  frowned  on  such 
churchmen  as  still  gave  a  blessing  to  conviviality. 
It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  their  disapproval 
culminated  under  the  Protectorate.     Cromwell, 

285 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

let  it  be  remembered,  was  both  a  Puritan  and  a 
brewer.  Am  I  wronging  him  if  I  fancy  that  he 
foresaw  how  rehgious  disapproval  would  pre- 
sently aid  his  business  ?  Licensing  legislation 
has  failed  to  make  our  people  sober,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  it  has  never  been  based  on  the 
people's  will.  Puritan  and  brewer  have  gener- 
ally seemed  to  pull  different  ways,  but  of  their 
joint  responsibility  for  the  present  state  of  the 
liquor  traffic  in  our  country,  and  in  the  lands  we 
have  colonized,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  It  is 
now  so  bad  that  persons  in  whom  there  is  ordin- 
arily no  trace  of  fanaticism  are  almost  ready  to 
advocate  its  complete  extinction.  At  one  time 
it  has  been  regulated  by  Puritans  who  have 
hoped  to  empty  the  Public  Houses  by  making 
them  as  sordid  and  wretched  as  possible.  At 
another  it  has  been  regulated  by  the  brewers, 
who  have  known  that  the  more  miserable  the 
bar,  the  more  would  its  frequenters  drink,  and 
the  more  prosperous  would  be  the  brewery. 

The  poet  Shenstone,  who  found  his  "  warmest 
welcome  at  an  inn  "  has  frequently  been  pitied. 
Unhappy  in  many  ways  he  may  have  been,  but, 
putting  his  reminiscences  to  the  test  of  modern 
experience,  we  are  like  to  find  that  he  was  in  one 
way  enviable.     I  cannot  truthfully  say  that  I 

236 


THE        PUBLIC        HOUSE 

have  ever  detected  much  warmth  in  the  recep- 
tion given  me  on  licensed  premises  in  England. 
My  requests  for  a  drink  in  exchange  for  so  much 
copper  or  silver  have  usually  been  met,  but  it  has 
been  a  business  transaction  of  the  most  formal 
order.  Here,  perhaps,  I  should  own  that  my 
purchases  have  usually  been  modest.  Persons 
who  consume  champagne  are,  I  imderstand, 
occasionally  privileged  to  shake  hands  with  the 
landlord,  or,  if  the  regularity  and  quantity  of 
one's  potations  atone  for  their  inferiority,  one 
may,  I  am  told,  receive  from  him  a  word  or 
a  nod.  The  stranger — ^the  man  for  whom  inns 
were  originally  designed — ^must  not  expect  such 
favours  if  his  orders  run  only  to  half-a-pint  of 
bitter.  Should  he  have  other  wants  which  are 
not  alcoholic,  it  is  well  for  him  to  conceal  them. 
The  hungry  man  demanding  bread  and  meat 
will  be  curtly  informed  that  he  has  come  to  the 
wrong  shop.  The  tired  traveller  asking  for  a 
chair  will  be  made  to  feel  that  he  desires  something 
for  nothing,  and  had  better  go  to  a  philan- 
thropic  institution. 

For  the  degeneracy  of  our  hostelries,  the 
poor  publican  ought  not,  however,  to  be  blamed. 
In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  he  is  merely  an  em- 
ployed person.     He  dreads  chairs  and  food  be- 

287 


ABOUT        IT       AND       ABOUT 

cause  those  who  sit  and  eat  in  comfort  consume 
less  liquor  than  others  who  tope  in  the  per- 
pendicular position  favoured  by  his  lord  and 
master,  Mr.  Bung,  He  distrusts  strangers  be- 
cause their  vagaries  may  get  him  into  trouble 
with  the  law.  He  abhors  merriment,  because 
a  single  sober  merry-maker  is  more  dangerous 
to  his  licence  than  a  dozen  silent,  sodden  crea- 
tures who  find  no  joy  in  their  cups.  To  attract 
custom,  he  may  place  behind  his  bar  a  woman 
with  piled  hair  and  powdered  nose,  but  in  con- 
versation or  flirtation  with  her  he  sees  that  the 
real  business  of  the  house  may  be  neglected, 
and  he  is  energetic  in  curbing  the  young  man 
with  a  tendency  to  drink  only  with  his  eyes. 
When  a  customer  has  drunk  all  he  can  be  induced 
to  drink,  his  room  becomes  preferable  to  his 
company.  In  some  taverns  the  traditions  of 
hospitality  are  openly  disavowed  by  a  printed 
notice  to  the  effect  that  in  a  place  of  business 
it  is  well  to  do  one's  business  quickly.  Returning 
from  abroad,  I  am  able  to  wonder  why  Samuel 
Johnson  so  triumphed  in  England's  felicity  in 
inns,  or  claimed  to  Boswell  that  the  French 
had  none  as  good  as  ours. 

It  is  not,  however,  only  his  testimony  that  we 
have  in  favour  of  our  old  hostelries.    Publicans 

238 


THE        PUBLIC        HOUSE 

whilst  they  existed   as  a  race  of  independent 
men  were  people  of  good  repute,  and  as  willing 
to  serve  the  hungry  as  the  thirsty,  since  from 
both  they  made  a  fair  profit.     They  were,  more- 
over, sociable  beings,  and,  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word,  entertainers.     English  literature  from 
Chaucer  to  Dickens  is  one  long  testimonial  to 
their  qualities,  and,  whilst  men  united  in  their 
praise,  they  strove  to  keep  the  good  name  they 
had  won.    Only  when  the  brewer  became  despot 
and  insisted  on  the  monotonous,  rapid,  and  over- 
whelming flow  of  liquid  refreshment,  did  they 
fall  in  general  esteem.     Puritans  had,  of  course, 
always  eyed  them  askance,  but  Puritanism,  after 
all,  had  been  but  a  blight  on  national  character. 
Its  attempt  to  divorce  soul  and  body,  and  so 
to  usurp  the  place  of  the  Angel  of  Death,  had  been 
rejected  by  our  more  healthy  instincts.     As  for 
the  innkeeper,  whilst  the  good  Vicar  of  Wake- 
field and  such  worthies  thought  it  no  shame  to 
frequent  his  house,  he  was  not  greatly  troubled 
by  the  kill-joys.     Now  he  is  without  stay  or 
comfort.      Even    those    who    support    him    for 
political  reasons  would   be  scandalized  to  see  a 
cleric  at  his  bar.     His  house  is  officially  declared 
unfit  for   children.     Convention  forbids   a  self- 
respecting  woman  to  cross  his  threshold. 

289 


ABOUT        IT       AND       ABOUT 

American  "  spell-binders,"  bent  on  extending 
compulsory  teetotalism  from  their  land  to  ours, 
are  in  our  midst.  They  would  have  a  compara- 
tively easy  task  were  it  not  that  the  Labour 
Party,  much  to  the  disgust  of  all  prophets  of  the 
pump,  is  talking  of  nationalization  and  will 
soon  insist  on  public  houses  being  run  in  the 
public  interest.  As  it  at  present  stands,  the 
Public  House  is  an  epitome  of  all  our  native 
vices.  In  the  first  place  it  stands  for  com- 
mercialism and  inebriety.  Its  saloon  bar  ex- 
emplifies our  snobbery,  and  its  private  bar  our 
hypocrisy.  Tolerance  of  the  public  bar  and  all 
its  reeking  squalor  merely  shows  to  what  craven 
state  industrialism  has  brought  the  masses.  Yet 
I  believe  we  shall  in  time  muster  enough  good 
sense  to  destroy  the  Public  House  of  to-day 
without  submitting  to  a  "  bone-dry  "  England. 
In  France  one  soon  grows  familar  with  a  poster 
which  represents  the  drunkard  and  his  family, 
and  on  which  are  written  the  words  :  "  Quand 
supprimera-t-on  Valcool  ?  "  It  is  not  total  pro- 
hibition for  which  the  sane  French  reformers 
are  asking.  In  the  land  of  light  beers  and  the 
vine,  they  would  laugh  to  scorn  such  furious 
folly,  but  I  have  begun  to  question  whether  there 
are  any  temperate  people  in  the  English  speaking 

240 


THE        PUBLIC        HOUSE 

races.  Probably  they  exist,  but  the  brewers 
and  distillers,  ably  supported  by  Mr.  Pussyfoot, 
will  not  let  them  be  heard.  Longfellow,  once  a 
force  in  moulding  American  thought,  wrote 
that  "  Bacchus  was  the  type  of  vigour,  and 
Silenus  of  excess,"  and  I  shall  always  admire 
the  New  York  clergyman  who,  a  while  ago, 
dared  to  tell  Dr.  Saleeby  that,  despite  all  laws, 
the  working  man  would  in  the  end  insist  on 
having  his  beer.  It  was  not  the  first  occasion, 
and,  perhaps,  it  will  not  be  the  last,  on  which 
a  representative  of  religion  has  upheld  an  un- 
changing verity  against  a  scientist's  ever  shifting 
bigotries.  In  modern  England,  however,  it  is 
to  Labour  one  must  look  for  deliverance  from 
Bung  and  the  fanatics. 

"  Love  of  temperance,'*  Mr.  Balfour  has  said, 
"  is  a  polite  name  for  hatred  of  the  publicans." 
Such  a  remark  from  such  a  man  almost  makes 
one  despair.  Would  he  have  said  that  love  of 
peace  meant  hatred  of  the  soldier,  or  that  sani- 
tary houses  were  built  from  a  dislike  of  the 
physician  ?  Love  of  temperance  is  hatred  of 
nothing  but  intemperance,  and  this  would  be 
plain  to  the  meanest  intelligence  had  not  Liberal 
and  Tory,  Puritan  and  brewer,  emmeshed  the 
question  in  a  tangle  of  party  politics,  prejudices, 

241  Q 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

and  profits.  I  do  not  even  hate  brewers,  but 
I  do  resent  them  having  been  allowed,  and 
actually  encouraged,  to  grow  fat  during  the 
years  when  so  many  of  us  were  growing  lean. 
In  one  year  of  war  the  Allsop  firm  multiplied 
its  profits  by  five,  and  Messrs.  Ind,  Coope, 
actually  increased  theirs  a  hundredfold.  With 
beers  of  low  gravity  I  have  no  quarrel,  but  I 
do  object  to  paying  exorbitant  prices  for  water. 
The  soaring  value  of  brewery  shares  provokes 
natural  indignation,  and  gives  "  Pussyfoot "  his 
chance.  There  is  almost  universal  condemna- 
tion of  the  system  on  which  "  the  Trade  "  for 
years  past  has  been  conducted.  But  why  in  the 
name  of  temperance  should  we  cut  off  our  noses 
to  spite  somebody  else's  face,  or  deny  our  thirst 
its  due  to  annoy  the  men  who  have  already 
annoyed  us  more  than  enough  ? 


242 


THE    POOR    LAW 

IN  the  train  between   Fenchurch   Street   and 
Tilbury,  passing  through  districts  which  are 
neither  blessed  nor  beautiful,   I  set  myself  to 
read  one  of  the  little  grey  books.     Do  not  jump 
to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  a  publication  of 
the  Pelman  Institute,  and  that  I  was  learning 
how  to  become  a  colonel  at  twenty-seven  or  a 
member  of  Parliament  at  twenty-eight.     It  was 
only  a  "  Reconstruction  Pamphlet "  issued  by 
the  Government,  yet  it  encouraged  me  to  hope 
that  if  I  were  to  become  a  pauper  I  might  get 
better  treatment  than  was  given  to  the  paupers 
of  the  past.     It  was  entitled  The  Reform  of  the 
Poor   Law,    and    it   should,  perhaps,    be   added 
that  its  author  was  a  professional  optimist.     He 
had   a   childlike   belief  in   Royal   Commissions. 
He  seemed  to  fancy  that  their  reports  presaged 
extraordinary  activity,  whereas  practical  experi- 
ence teaches  that  about  a  month  after  issue  they 
are  commonly  mislaid  in  departmental  lumber 
rooms.     Further,    though    the   writer   was  well 
informed,  he  seemed  to  me  to  have  a  secretive 
temperament. 

243 


ABOUT        IT       AND       ABOUT 

With  the  famous  "  forty-third  of  Elizabeth," 
for  instance,  he  dealt  too  briefly,  for,  despite  its 
fame,  the  contents  of  this  Act  are  not  as  well 
known  as  they  ought  to  be.  After  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  monasteries,  poverty  and  distress 
grew  rapidly  in  England,  and  the  law  was  an 
honest  attempt  to  cope  with  a  social  situation 
that  had  become  alarming.  Seeing  how  it  has 
been  administered  at  various  times,  including 
our  own,  there  are  some  who  imagine  it  must 
have  been  a  bad  x^ct.  Others,  who  have  troubled 
to  read  it,  have  concluded  that  it  must  have 
been  repealed  before  they  came  into  the  world. 
Both  assumptions  are  incorrect.  As  Acts  go, 
it  is  a  remarkably  good  Act,  and  it  is  still  on  the 
statute  book.  Unfortunately,  candidates  for  the 
Board  of  Guardians  have  never  been  obhged  to 
pass  an  examination  in  it  as  a  test  of  their  eligi- 
bility for  office,  nor  have  electors  ever  extracted 
from  them  a  promise  to  carry  out  its  provisions 
in  the  event  of  their  candidature  being  suc- 
cessful. 

Were  some  of  its  forgotten  clauses  to  be  put 
into  practice,  we  should  imagine  there  had  been  a 
revolution.  One  of  them  positively  ordains  that 
the  Guardians  shall  set  to  work  all  those  who  have 
no  visible  means  of  subsistence,  and  shall  raise 

244 


THE        POOR        LAW 

weekly  from  the  parish  such  sums  and  materials 
as  they  require  for  the  purpose.  The  intelli- 
gent reader  may  ask  whether  this  does  not  con- 
stitute a  "  Right  to  Work  Act,"  and  I  am  bound 
to  reply  that  it  does.  For  over  three  hundred 
years  we  have  possessed  this  "  measure  of  social- 
ism," and  have  forgotten  to  have  it  executed. 
Were  we  to  start  now,  there  would  be  a  great 
outcry  from  ratepayers,  private  employers,  and 
the  aristocrats  of  the  Trade  Unions,  who  would 
see  all  their  particular  interests  threatened  if 
able-bodied  paupers  were  productively  employed. 
Whilst  we  remain  the  two  hostile  nations  of  rich 
and  poor,  of  which  Disraeli  wrote,  the  old  Act 
must  stay  a  dead   letter. 

The  Elizabethans  who  drafted  it  were  what 
we  should  call  men  of  very  advanced  views. 
They  went  as  far  as  to  say  that  the  children  of 
those  who  were  unable  to  maintain  their  off- 
spring must  be  put  out  as  apprentices.  They 
did  not  say  they  were  to  be  imloaded  on  the 
market  as  casual  labourers,  or  sold  into  slavery 
as  in  the  days  of  Bumble.  Using  the  word 
"  apprentice,"  they  clearly  meant  the  young 
pauper  to  be  prepared  for  following  a  skilled 
trade,  which  would  give  him  as  good  a  chance 
in  life  as  had  the  children  of  a  prosperous  artizan, 

245 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

From  this  same  Act  I  gather  that  Boards  of  Guar- 
dians are  neglecting  their  duty  when  they  do  not 
build  houses  in  which  the  poor  can  live.  Nothing 
is  said  about  erecting  the  sort  of  gaol  in  which 
the  paupers  of  the  parish  are  now  commonly 
herded.  The  Elizabethan  extremists  had  in  mind 
the  building  of  separate  cottages  for  separate 
families.  One  is  almost  driven  to  conclude  that 
their  design  was  to  restore  self-respect  to  the 
needy,  rather  than  to  make  relief  an  engine  for 
destroying  its  last,  tattered  shreds. 

Some  day  a  reformer  will  arise  to  demand  that, 
instead  of  another  Royal  Commission,  we  are 
given  the  Act,  the  whole  Act,  and  nothing  but 
the  Act.  Meanwhile,  let  us  admit  that  its 
framers  and  early  apologists  were  sadly  ignorant 
of  what  we  call  sociology.  Take  Sir  Mathew 
Hale  for  example.  He  figures  in  history  as 
having  been,  among  other  things,  a  persecutor 
of  witches,  but  I  am  only  concerned  here  with 
his  defence  of  the  lines  along  which  the  poor  in 
his  age  were  being  helped.  There  were,  he  said, 
a  number  of  weighty  reasons  for  their  relief, 
among  them  being  love  of  God  and  one's  neigh- 
bour, and  also  because,  as  he  had  noted,  poverty 
weakened  the  fibre  of  men.  His  opinion  on 
this  last  point  has,  of  course,  been  questioned. 

246 


THE        POOR        LAW 

Most  of  us  have  been  taught  to  believe  that  it  is 
not  poverty,  but  its  reUef,  which  creates  moral 
weakness.  Perhaps  our  teaching  has  been  false, 
but,  anyhow,  I  find  something  very  shrewd  and 
worldly  wise  in  another  of  his  arguments.  Not 
long  ago  there  was  an  economist  who  said  that 
it  was  convenient  for  a  part  of  the  population 
to  be  imemployed  and  destitute,  as  it  served 
for  a  pool  from  which  labour  could  be  drawn 
for  a  "  boom "  in  trade.  Sir  Mathew  would 
not  have  agreed  with  him.  Sir  Mathew  said 
that  if  there  were  a  multitude  of  poor,  there 
could  be  no  long  safety  for  the  rich.  Had  his 
words  been  more  heeded,  Robespierre  and  Trot- 
sky might  yet  be  unknown  to  fame,  but  it  is, 
of  course,  acknowledged  that  he  was  far  from 
being  a  scientific  sociologist. 

Guardians  of  the  brighter  kind  may  want  to 
tell  me  that  instead  of  gushing  about  Tudor 
times  I  should  remember  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  the  Poor  Law  Amendment  Act.  I 
have  heard  of  it.  It  set  up  three  gentlemen 
who  were  disrespectfully  called  the  Three  Bashaws 
of  Somerset  House.  My  little  grey  book  says 
that  it  "  laid  down  no  principles,"  but  it  cer- 
tainly contrived  to  instil  them.  It  turned  the 
guardians  of  the  poor  into  guardians  of  the  poor 

247 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

rate,  and  so  they  have  remained  from  that  day 
to  this.  The  great  idea  drawn  from  it  was  that 
the  situation  of  the  able-bodied  paupers  must  be 
made  "  less  eligible  "  than  that  of  independent 
labourers  of  the  lowest  class.  They  could  not 
be  given  less  nourishment  without  causing  them 
to  die  of  hunger,  but  they  could  be  given  their 
food  in  a  more  distasteful  form.  Applicants  for 
relief  were  to  be  given  the  "  offer  of  the  house," 
or,  in  other  words,  of  loss  of  liberty.  Guardians 
were  left  with  discretionary  powers,  and  "  out 
relief "  was  not  abolished  by  this  Act  with  no 
principles,  but  Boards,  remembering  their  self- 
appointed  task  of  safeguarding  the  ratepayers' 
interests,  have  a  way  of  deciding  that  discretion 
is  the  better  part  of  beneficence.  If  they  put 
it  to  an  applicant  that  he  or  she  must  either  go 
without  relief  or  become  a  workhouse  inmate, 
there  is  always  the  sporting  chance  that  the 
former  alternative  will  be  taken.  Despite  all 
our  Acts,  Royal  Commissions,  and  care  for  the 
poor,  deaths  from  starvation  do  occur  now  and 
then.  When  Blackstone  wrote  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan law,  he  added  that  "  the  further  any 
subsequent  plans  for  maintaining  the  poor  have 
departed  from  it,  the  more  impracticable  and 
pernicious  these  attempts  have  proved." 

248 


THE        POOR        LAW 

In  one  respect,  however,  the  idea  of  imprison- 
ing the  indigent  did  show  an  advance  on  all 
earlier  policies.  It  hinted  a  dawning  belief  that 
poverty  was  a  crime,  but,  by  some  perversity, 
it  enacted  that  for  this  particular  crime  the 
victim  should  be  punished.  Extension  of  such 
a  practice  might  lead  to  several  injustices.  I 
should  at  least  be  fined  forty  shillings  and  costs 
were  I  to  be  run  over  by  a  callous  or  careless 
motorist.  Some  may  refuse  to  recognize  the 
parallel.  The  late  Miss  Octavia  Hill  declared 
that  the  thrifty  never  came  on  the  rates,  and  that 
debt  and  want  of  character  were  the  causes  of 
pauperism,  so,  if  we  accept  her  evidence,  at  first 
glance  it  may  seem  that  I  am  wrong  in  describ- 
ing our  workhouse  inmate  as  more  sinned  against 
than  sinning.  Does  he  come  on  the  rates  from 
his  own  fault  ?  Debt  is  due  to  various  causes, 
among  them  being  the  extravagant  tastes  in 
grog  and  gramophones,  to  foster  which  impor- 
tant industries  exist.  A  debt  clearly  has  two 
parties  to  it,  and,  if  a  debt  be  a  fault,  there  are 
two  parties  to  the  fault,  though  the  Board  of 
Guardians  pimishes  one  only.  As  to  want  of 
character,  I  must  refer  again  to  Sir  Mathew. 
Poverty,  he  thought,  destroyed  character,  so  if 
we   punish    people   for   its   lack,    may  we    not 

249 


ABOUT       IT       AND       ABOUT 

really  be  punishing  them  for  the  accident  of 
having  been  born  in  poor  homes  and  bred  in 
poor  surroundings  ? 

The  little  grey  book  did  not  examine  these 
questions.  It  was  remiss  in  several  ways.  It 
told  me  nothing  about  old  soldiers,  though  I 
fancy  it  was  largely  meant  for  their  consump- 
tion. Going  elsewhere  for  information,  I  found 
that  a  little  while  before  the  war  twenty  per 
cent,  of  our  vagrant  population  were  drawn 
from  this  class.  Vagrants  had  been  mentioned 
briejfly  in  the  reconstruction  pamphlet.  In  Russia 
they  used  to  be  called  "  the  bells  of  God,"  but 
in  this  country,  it  seems,  there  is  a  scheme  afoot 
to  place  them  in  detention  colonies.  These 
natural  gypsies,  the  people  who,  traditionally, 
come  of  a  race  older  than  Adam  and  are  not 
under  that  primal  curse  which  makes  some  of 
us  sweat  to  earn  our  bread,  are  to  escape  no 
longer.  Perhaps  this  is  as  it  should  be,  but  I 
do  not  like  the  idea  that  at  least  one-fifth  of  them 
may  be  men  who  have  directly  served  the  State. 
Can  the  much  lauded  discipline  of  the  barrack 
and  the  square  do  no  better  ?  The  discharged 
soldier,  having  been  fed  on  rations  by  the  ravens, 
taught  to  rejoice  in  freedom  from  responsibility, 
accustomed  only  to  act  on  orders,  becomes  the 

250 


THE        POOR        LAW 

casual  of  the  highway.  "  \'ou  are  not  here  to 
think,  my  lad,"  is  a  saying  which  from  recruit 
days  has  sunk  into  his  soul.  After  all,  he  may 
not  have  been  a  natural  vagrant ;  yet  a  deten- 
tion colony  awaits  him.  With  our  poor  law 
wiseacres  imprisonment  is  a  panacea. 

When  all  room  has  been  left  for  controversy, 
it  remains  that  the  general  mixed  workhouse, 
that  stronghold  on  which  all  the  unimaginative, 
incompetent,  guardians  of  the  rates  have  so  long 
relied,  is  in  the  last  crumbling  stages  of  decay. 
Sir  Donald  Maclean's  Committee  condemned  it, 
and  it  was  condemned  in  the  reign  of  William 
IV.  If  all  the  evidence  against  it  were  printed 
in  a  single  line  it  would  stretch  easily  from  White- 
hall to  the  man  in  the  moon  and  persuade  him 
to  take  action.  How  many  more  Royal  Com- 
missions must  give  judgment  against  it  ?  Even 
those  who  urge  that  it  is  cheap,  acknowledge 
it  to  be  nasty ;  but,  of  course,  it  is  not  cheap. 
There  are  children  in  it.  Often  they  are  in  the 
same  dormitory  with  imbeciles,  with  women 
advanced  in  senile  decay,  with  girls  stricken 
by  contagious  disease,  and  they  grow  up  awry. 
No  farmer  looking  for  future  profits  would  keep 
his  young  stock  in  such  conditions.  "  The  great 
fault  in  our  Constitution,"  said  Peter  Pounce, 

251 


ABOUT        IT       AND       ABOUT 

"  is  the  provision  made  for  the  poor,"  and  he 
bewailed  that  he  himself  would  come  to  the  parish 
in  the  end.  His  objections  to  the  working  of  the 
Poor  Law  were  not  the  same  as  mine ;  but  his 
final  prognostication  provides  an  argument  which 
may  make  even  the  most  careless  interest  them- 
selves in  reform. 


253 


THE    SPORTSMAN 

THE  sportsman  is  a  man  who  devotes  to 
sport  what  he  considers  the  best  part 
of  his  hfe.  He  who  for  the  sake  of  old 
times  occasionally  watches  a  match  at  Queen's 
Club,  or  spends  an  hour  or  two  at  the 
Oval  because  the  skill  and  symmetry  of  cricket 
appeal  to  his  eye,  is  unworthy  of  the  title. 
Equally  invalid  are  the  claims  of  those  who 
in  middle  life  start  to  go  golfing  for  the  good 
of  their  figures,  and  of  others  who  from  their 
youth  up  have  found  at  tennis  a  satisfactory 
way  of  spending  Sunday  afternoons  in  the  sub- 
urbs. The  sportsman  despises  them  as  every 
enthusiast  must  despise  the  dabbler  and  the 
Laodicean.  For  him  the  whole  year  and  all  the 
changes  of  the  months  have  a  meaning  which 
escapes  us  others.  Never  has  he  been  able  to 
understand  the  poet's  wish  to  be  in  England  in 
April  which  is  a  close  season  and  offers  only 
restricted  chances  even  for  playing  games.  Sum- 
mer he  can  turn  to  some  account,  but  he  is  eager 
for  the  fall  of  the  leaf,  for  not  till  then  will  he 
be  able  to  get  to  work  with  the  pheasants.    Hard 

258 


ABOUT       IT       AND       ABOUT 


frosts    of   mid-winter,    interrupting   his    pursuit 
of  the  fox,  again  depress  him. 

Within  reason,  sportsmen  and  poets  may  both 
have  a  right  to  indulge  their  tastes.     Both  are 
entitled  to  their  opinions  on  the  merits  of  April 
or  October,  but  the  time  has  come  to  realize 
that    neither    should    be    allowed    to    over-ride 
the  interests  of  others.     Were  I  to  find  half  a 
dozen  young  men  had  trampled  my  cabbages 
and  geraniums  because  from  certain  points  in 
my  garden  could  be  had  an  exceptionally  good 
view  of  the  rising  sun  which  they  desired  to 
greet  with  an  ode,  I  should  receive  public  sym- 
pathy.    If  I  resisted  their  encroachments  with 
barbed  wire,  my  neighbours  would  approve  my 
action.     If  I   prosecuted   them,   the   magistrate 
would  commend  me  for  having  drawn  the  law's 
attention  to  an  outrage,  and  the  fact  that  I  had 
possibly  marred  six  poetical  masterpieces  would 
draw  no  biting  comments  from  the  local  Press. 
Yet,  when  the  trespassers  happen  to  be  on  horse- 
back and  accompanied  by  hounds,  I  shall  get 
nothing  but  execration  if  I  resist  or  resent  them. 
Should  they  gallop  over  my  tennis-lawn,  and  so 
interfere  with  another,  though,  it  may  be,  an 
inferior  form  of  sport,  I  should  be  regarded  as  a 
curmudgeon  if  I  protested.     Since  they  would 

254 


THE        SPORTSMAN 

have  been  following  a  fox,  my  objections  would  be 
met  at  first  with  bland  surprise  and,  later,  with 
indignation.  Formal  complaint  to  the  hunt's 
secretary  might  lead  to  a  supercilious  offer  of 
inadequate  compensation,  and  I  should  thence- 
forward be  branded  as  no  gentleman. 

Sport  is  always  defended  on  the  two  broad 
grounds  that  it  is  English  and  manly.  Why 
"  English  "  I  do  not  know.  Sport  is  as  inter- 
national as  socialism.  In  parts  of  the  world 
where  the  fox  does  not  abound,  or  is  treated  with 
contempt,  his  place  is  taken  by  boar,  stag, 
tiger,  bull  or  rat,  and  all  these  animals  are  harried 
and  killed  because  pleasure  is  found  in  harrying 
and  killing  them.  To  describe  sport  as  "  manly  " 
also  conveys  a  false  impression,  but  it  has  a  sort 
of  archaic  justification.  When  first  our  rude 
forefathers  quitted  their  caves  and  wattle-huts  to 
slaughter  edible  animals,  their  wives  were  left 
at  home  to  keep  the  pot  boiling.  That  these 
expeditions  were  agreeable  is  by  no  means  sure. 
Not  until  the  human  could  feel  that  his  weapons 
of  offence  and  defence  gave  him  a  distinct  superi- 
ority over  his  prey,  did  he  go  hunting  for  any 
reason  save  necessity.  When  fun  began  to  supple- 
ment, or  to  supersede,  hunger  as  motive  for  the 
chase,  the  Amazon  made  her  appearance  in  the 

255 


ABOUT        IT       AND       ABOUT 

field,  and  she  came  to  stay,  though  for  a  while 
Nimrod  maintained  a  jealous  attitude.  A  meet 
of  hounds  without  women  is  now  unthinkable, 
and  in  nearly  all  sports,  either  separately  or 
together,  both  sexes  take  active  part.  Bull  fight- 
ing is,  perhaps,  an  exception.  In  Spain  they  have 
the  curious  idea  that  a  contest  is  unsporting 
when  the  odds  are  more  than  ten  to  one  in  favour 
of  the  human  competitor  slaying  the  animal 
without  injury  to  himself.  In  consequence,  the 
primitive  tradition  survives  that  women  are 
better  out  of  the  way  and  as  mere  spectators  of 
masculine  prowess. 

English  sportsmen  often  call  their  Spanish 
brethren  barbarians,  and  the  Spaniards  respond 
by  calling  us  degenerates.  Both  are  right.  As 
I  am  not  a  vegetarian,  I  am  in  no  position  to 
object  to  the  taking  of  animal  life,  but  from 
nearly  all  the  blood  sports  of  this  country  the 
original  excuse  or  reason  has  departed.  One 
does  not  take  a  Scottish  grouse-moor  to  reduce 
the  butcher's  bill.  One  does  not  rent  a  Hamp- 
shire trout-stream  because  the  larder  would 
otherwise  be  empty.  None  of  the  motives  which 
would  have  made  shooting  or  fishing  appeal  to 
me  is  left,  and  I  get  my  food  from  shops  in  the 
High  Street  without  pretending  that  I  am  a 

256 


THE        SPORTSMAN 

virile  creature  who  has  gone  back  to  nature  by 
kilHng  hand-reared  pheasants.  Two  or  three 
times  I  have  been  obhged  to  see  oxen  slaugh- 
tered, and,  though  the  sight  was  not  pleasant, 
I  recognized  that  humane  methods  were  being 
used.  Death  was  instantaneous.  Infinitely 
worse  things  are  to  be  seen  if  one  passes  through 
a  covert  on  the  evening  after  a  big  hattue.  And 
yet  in  our  language  "  Sportsman  "  is  used  as 
a  term  of  praise,  whilst  "  butcher  "  is  abusive. 
The  hunting  of  the  fox,  that  most  sacred 
institution  against  which  Oscar  Wilde  blas- 
phemed, was  once  also  a  beneficent  act.  The 
fox  was  recognized  as  an  enemy  to  the  common 
weal.  Slings  and  bows  and  arrows  were  useless 
as  weapons,  and  the  neighbourhood  united  against 
him  with  dogs  and  horses.  To-day,  when  I  see 
the  unspeakable  riding  after  the  uneatable,  I 
have  a  momentary  feeling  of  surprise  such  as 
I  should  have  had  if  I  had  seen  reinforcements 
with  harquebuses,  instead  of  the  latest  Lewis 
gun,  sent  against  the  Germans.  The  spectacle 
is  picturesque,  but  it  smacks  of  inefficiency. 
Speaking  subject  to  correction,  I  assume  that  the 
object  in  view  is  to  kill  a  fox  or  foxes,  and  I  know 
these  vermin  are  a  nuisance  to  the  countryside. 
A  few  determined  fellows,  armed  with  modem 

257  E 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

weapons,  could  do  the  work  so  much  more 
thoroughly,  but,  of  course,  there  would  be  lack- 
ing that  artificial  pother  which  has  beguiled 
Mr.  Masefield  into  forgetfulness  of  his  real  man- 
hood. Given  a  little  aniseed,  one  could  further 
arrange  for  men,  women,  hounds,  and  horses 
to  have  as  much  healthful  exercise  as  ever  a 
fox  gave  them.  When  this  form  of  sport  was 
covertly  introduced  some  years  ago  in  a  southern 
county,  the  master  was  heartily  congratulated  on 
a  series  of  excellent  runs.  When  it  became 
known  that  the  scent  had  been  provided  by  a 
specially  prepared  red  herring,  people  spoke 
as  though  a  disgraceful  scandal  had  been  brought 
to  light.  The  more  I  think  on  the  nature  of  the 
thing  called  sport,  the  more  it  baffles  me. 

In  many  parts  of  the  country,  hunting  is  simply 
a  public  nuisance.  Its  devotees  are  no  longer 
content  with  the  chance  of  finding  a  wild  fox  to 
chase,  and  tame  creatures,  so  little  frightened 
of  man  that  they  will  raid  farm-yards  in  the 
middle  of  a  summer  morning,  are  freely  turned 
down  in  the  woods.  Their  destruction,  except 
in  the  approved  and  antiquated  style,  is  regarded 
as  a  blackguardly  business.  It  required  a  legal 
decision  by  Lord  Justice  Coleridge  to  convince 
the  hunt's  followers  that  a  pink  coat  did  not 

258 


THE        SPORTSMAN 

make  its  wearer  immune  from  the  ordinary 
operation  of  the  law  of  trespass.  Although 
those  who  ride  to  hounds  are  an  insignificant 
minority  of  the  population  even  in  a  hunting 
shire,  one  is  regarded  as  selfish  if  from  humani- 
tarian or  any  reasons  one  interferes  with  their 
amusements.  The  sportman's  point  of  view  is, 
moreover,  accepted  by  the  majority.  What  was 
good  for  the  community  a  few  hundred  years 
ago  is  still  thought  good.  We  move  in  thought 
so  slowly. 

Nothing  about  the  sportsman  is  more  wonder- 
ful to  me  than  his  inconsistency.  Pitiless  to  the 
bird  or  beast  whose  pursuit,  agonies,  and  death 
can  bring  him  pleasure,  he  still  preserves  a  sort 
of  love  for  animals.  The  dog  at  his  heels  and  the 
horse  he  sits  so  easily  both  know  him  far  better 
than  I  ever  shall,  and  they  seem  to  think  him  an 
admirable  and  lovable  creature.  An  act  of 
cruelty  to  either  of  their  breeds  will  rouse  him 
to  white  heat  of  fury.  His  support  for  any 
movements  to  protect  bird  or  beast  is  certain, 
unless,  of  course,  it  infringes  on  what  he  con- 
siders legitimate  sport.  I  have  an  old  volume 
of  the  Sporting  Magazine  which  shows  that  a 
century  ago,  when  men's  minds  were  less  tender 
than  they  are  now,  he  was  in  the  forefront  of  those 

259 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

who  had  begun  to  oppose  certain  base  cruelties. 
It  is  no  use  to  be  blind  to  this  side  of  him,  but  it 
gives  no  proof  that  his  sports  are  ennobling 
occupations.  All  butchers  whom  I  have  known 
intimately  have  been  great  lovers  of  dogs,  but 
it  will  not  be  claimed  that  they  learnt  their  love 
in  the  shambles.  Into  these  mysteries  of  the 
heart  I  cannot  penetrate.  Perhaps  the  sports- 
man is  simply  "  le  brute  humaine  "  that  Octave 
Mirbeau  called  him.  Perhaps  he  asks  no  more 
questions  of  himself  than  does  the  terrier  now 
lying  at  my  feet.  Of  conscious  cruelty  I  can 
acquit  him.  He  hates  no  living  creature  unless 
it  be  a  person  like  myself  who  tries  to  spoil  his 
sport  by  pointing  to  its  seamy  side.  All  he 
asks  is  to  be  let  alone ;  but  it  is  no  use.  Time  is 
conquering  him.  His  life  is  founded  on  a  pre- 
tence that  what  was  at  the  beginning  must 
remain  until  the  world's  end,  and  that  human 
nature  ought  not  to  change  with  conditions  of 
human  life. 

Bear  baiting  has  gone,  and  fox  hunting  will 
go  soon.  The  more  democratic  sport  of  ratting 
may  survive  awhile,  for  Labour  candidates  are 
already  pledging  themselves  to  resist  interference 
with  the  sports  of  the  people,  but  in  a  few  cen- 
turies we  shall  all  content  ourselves  with  hunting 

260 


THE        SPORTSMAN 

the  slipper  and  shall  wonder  why  our  forefathers 
took  such  delight  in  "  the  image  of  war."  The 
sportsman,  of  course,  reads  the  future  in  another 
fashion.  He  is  a  sentimental  atavist  who 
beUeves,  and  hopes,  that  we  shall  always 
retain  a  certain  bloody-mindedness.  He  has  the 
conservative  temperament  which  some  call 
pessimism. 


261 


THE    COUPON    GOVERNMENT 

THE  early  decline  of  so  lusty  a  young  giant 
as  the  one  which  a  while  ago  Sir  George 
Younger  raised  before  our  wondering  eyes  from 
its  cradle  of  the  ballot  box  gives  cause  for  justi- 
fiable surprise.  All  the  good  fairies  were  present 
at  its  birth.  Victory  was  there,  and  Peace  and 
Prosperity  were  announced.  Liberty  came  with 
Dora  drooping  on  her  arm,  and  Equality  and 
Privilege  were  made  to  embrace  in  public.  But, 
as  sometimes  happens  on  these  auspicious  occa- 
sions, the  bad  fairy  appeared  uninvited,  and, 
according  to  formula,  pronounced  her  male- 
diction. It  was  not  the  first  Coalition  she  had 
cursed,  and  it  may  not  be  the  last.  In  words 
which  may  be  familiar  to  those  who  read  history, 
she  decreed  that  it  should  "  partake  of  the  vices 
of  both  its  parents." 

What  those  vices  were  had  long  been  concealed 
by  all  good  Party  men,  but  it  is  not  disputed 
to-day  that  there  were  defects  on  either  side. 
In  the  Conservative  parent  was  ingrained  the 
vice  of  doing  things.  A  few  years  previously 
it  had  been  exemplified  by  the  organization  of 

262 


THE     COUPON     GOVERNMENT 


a  rebellion  in  Ulster.  The  Liberal  parent,  on 
the  other  hand,  had  the  vice  of  not  doing  things, 
and  this  had  come  to  the  surface  in  the  failure 
to  suppress  that  same  by  no  means  privy  con- 
spiracy. In  the  fusion  of  the  two  parties  opti- 
mists saw  a  hope  that  these  tendencies  would 
cancel  one  another,  but  the  wicked  fairy  willed 
it  otherwise.  Under  her  curse  the  Coupon  Gov- 
ernment has  laboured  from  its  first  days.  It  has 
had  a  passion  for  large  ventures,  and  its  record 
is  studied  with  great  tasks  begun.  It  set  up  a 
commission  on  coal  mines,  and  its  composition 
indicated  that  it  was  intended  to  report  favour- 
ably for  nationalization.  The  commission  did 
what  was  expected  of  it,  and  then  saw  its  main 
report  set  on  one  side.  Subsequent  efforts  to 
pacify  the  Duke  of  Northumberland  without 
mortally  offending  Mr.  Smillie  have,  of  course, 
been  futile,  but  it  may  be  argued  that  they  are 
acceptable  to  the  always  moderate  majority. 
Here  is  a  reasonable  line  of  defence.  One  may 
discard  either  from  strength  or  weakness ;  but 
study  of  other  hands  played  by  the  Coahtion 
does  not  suggest  that  Mr.  Justice  Sankey  was 
discarded  for  the  former  reason. 

There  is  a  monotonous  regularity  about  some 
of  the  Government's  doings.     Looking  to  Russia 

263 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

one  is  reminded  of  Sir  Henry  Campbell-Banner- 
man's  conundrum  as  to  when  a  war  is  not  a  war. 
When  it  is  a  campaign  directed  by  Mr.  Churchill 
and  ending  in  an  evacuation  is,  of  course,  the 
answer.  The  situation  in  Ireland  affords  the 
same  proof  of  weakness.  Mr.  Macpherson  takes 
his  stand  for  law  and  order,  and  law  instantly 
vanishes  in  martial  law,  whilst  in  place  of  order 
we  are  given  the  sack  of  Fermoy.  Sinn  Fein 
leaders  intermittently  go  to  gaol,  take  a  few 
weeks  to  recuperate  their  energies,  and  walk 
out  again.  Sir  Edward  Carson  continues  his 
rampage  without  interruption.  Still  nearer  home 
we  have  had  a  taste  of  the  Coalition's  methods 
in  dealing  with  the  profiteers.  On  account  of 
those  birds  of  prey  Sir  Auckland  Geddes  is  under- 
stood to  have  postponed  his  journey  from  Basing- 
stoke to  Montreal,  and  one  should,  perhaps,  be 
grateful  to  him.  His  disguise  as  a  scarecrow 
must  have  involved  no  small  sacrifice  of  pro- 
fessorial and  family  dignity,  but  that  it  will 
alarm  any  but  the  smallest  and  most  ingenuous 
fowls  is  doubtful. 

Firm  government  has  points  in  its  favour, 
and  so  has  laissez  faire,  for  under  either  system 
one  knows  approximately  what  to  expect.  The 
Coalition  is  consistent  only  in  raising  hopes  and 

264 


THE     COUPON     GOVERNMENT 

in  disappointing  them.  Even  in  its  muzzling 
order  its  timidity  was  made  manifest.  Anything 
for  a  quiet  hfe  is  a  sound  maxim  of  govern- 
ment, but,  to  quote  Lord  Morley,  it  is  not  the 
only  sound  maxim.  Occasionally  it  defeats  its 
own  ends.  The  railway  strike  showed  how  com- 
pletely it  could  do  so.  Nobody  believed  that 
the  Government  meant  what  it  said.  Doles 
and  subsidies  may  placate  labourers  who  do  not 
labour  and  needy  capitalists  who  cannot  support 
their  own  industries.  They  may  keep  certain 
deserving  classes  of  the  community  from  being 
out  at  elbows,  but  they  react  in  the  end  by  put- 
ting the  whole  nation  out  of  pocket,  and  the 
harmless,  necessary  taxpayer  out  of  temper. 
Fear  of  offending  too  many  people  at  once,  or 
of  setting  too  many  dogs  snarling  at  the  same 
moment,  postpones  trouble  by  making  it  inevit- 
able. It  is  poor  comfort  for  a  Prime  Minister 
to  have  saved  his  own  skin  when  he  realizes  that 
like  Balzac's  peau  de  chagrin  it  is  shrinking 
rapidly  all  the  time. 

From  the  first  the  Coalition  Front  Bench 
looked  more  like  a  union  of  all  the  interests 
than  of  all  the  talents,  yet,  on  one  item  of  con- 
structive policy  its  occupants  expressed  agree- 
ment.    Their  avowed  intention  was  to  lead  us 

265 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

into  a  new  world.  Others  have  of  old  professed 
the  same  desire,  notable  among  them  being  the 
builders  of  the  Tower  of  Babel.  Then  as  now 
absence  of  a  common  language  frustrated  an 
interesting  experiment.  There  is  no  need  to 
doubt  the  sincerity  of  His  Majesty's  Ministers, 
nor  the  abiUty  of  at  least  some  of  them.  As 
patriots,  they  may  have  buried  many  an  ancient 
difference,  but  that  they  are  often  compelled 
to  consult  an  Esperanto  dictionary  at  their 
meetings  I  can  well  beheve.  Only  by  some 
such  cumbersome  means,  I  imagine,  did  Mr. 
Barnes  explain  in  Mr.  Fisher's  sympathetic  ear 
the  disadvantages  of  a  university  training  to  a 
democratic  leader.  Thus,  too,  must  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain commune  with  Sir  Alfred  Mond  on 
tariffs,  and  Mr.  Montagu  instruct  Lord  Curzon 
on  his  Indian  schemes.  Valuable  time  must  be 
lost  whilst  they  look  up  the  meanings  of  such 
blessed  words  as  "  intellectual,"  "  key- industry," 
or  "  diarchy,"  but,  with  national  unity  as  their 
object,  one  should  not  be  too  impatient.  On 
these  grave  colloquies,  however,  Ministers  find 
it  hard  to  concentrate.  They  talk  and  listen 
as  men  who  are  timing  the  arrival  of  the  next 
shell.  At  any  moment  news  may  come  that 
the  Secretary  of    State  for  War  has  found  a 

266 


THE     COUPON     GOVERNMENT 

new  continent  to  conquer,  or  that  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant  of  Ireland  is  writing  a  new  book. 

Whilst  the  Prime  Minister  was  abroad  there 
was  a  feeling  that  these  troubles  must  be  taken 
philosophically.  On  his  return  he  would  set 
all  things  in  order.  That  much  was  taken  for 
granted,  yet  some  were  asking  where  he  would 
be  politically,  and  there  was  a  perceptible  note 
of  anxiety  in  their  voices.  The  question  has 
now  been  answered.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  is  found 
to  be  exactly  where  for  some  time  past  he  has 
been.  He  is  to  be  found  in  the  future,  which, 
by  all  accounts,  is  a  much  more  comfortable 
period  than  the  one  in  which  the  remainder  of 
us  live.  We  are,  I  suppose,  an  unimaginative 
people.  Promise  of  jam  to-morrow  ought  to 
fill  us  with  a  sort  of  spiritual  enthusiasm,  but  it 
only  makes  us  conscious  of  bodily  emptiness. 
One  small  house  built  by  Dr.  Addison  in  England 
attracts  more  would-be  tenants  than  apply  for 
all  the  castles  in  Spain  constructed  by  the  rest 
of  the  Premier's  staff  of  futuristic  joiu-nalists 
and   orators. 

The  coupon  candidates  were  given  a  mandate 
to  make  peace.  They  have  made  a  sort  of  peace, 
and  its  most  promising  feature  was  the  work  of 
one  who  is  not  a  member  of  the  Government, 

267 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

but  we  are  told  it  was  the  best  peace  they  could 
make.  As  nobody  imagines  it  can  last  without 
several  structural  alterations,  it  will  be  well  if 
somebody  else  is  soon  given  a  chance  of  effecting 
them.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  fought  a  good  fight 
at  Versailles,  but  never  received  the  Parlia- 
mentary backing  on  which  Mr.  Hughes  could 
always  rely.  He  was,  moreover,  manacled  by 
Ireland,  and  still  wears  the  handcuffs.  In  conse- 
quence, our  lectures  to  Rumania  and  any  other 
naughty  States  who  do  not  know  their  four- 
teen points  by  heart  are  received  abroad  with  but 
cynical  attention.  The  voice  is  the  voice  of 
Chadband,  but  Machiavelli  counts  ventriloquism 
among  his  accomplishments.  Our  foreign  friends 
know  how  the  English  tourist  away  from  the 
ties  and  responsibilities  of  home  can  abandon 
himself.  They  smile  when  the  English  sense  of 
justice  selects  Hungary  or  Fiume  or  the  Saar 
Valley  as  a  place  on  which  to  descend.  The 
Americans  have  a  blunt  trick  of  speech,  but  the 
rest  are  too  polite  to  mention  Dublin  Castle. 

Public  opinion,  despite  Peel's  scornful  saying, 
is  not  quite  a  tideless  sea.  The  country  may  not 
be  seething  with  indignation  at  its  rulers,  but 
there  is  plenty  of  smouldering  anger  and  a  quiet 
contempt  with  which  there  is  no  arguing.     The 

268 


THE     COUPON     GOVERNMENT 

tide  has  set  against  the  Government,  and  its 
members  are  drifting  to  deep  waters  on  an  un- 
seaworthy  craft.  What  will  happen  ?  Will  the 
coupon  holders  decide  by  majority  vote  to  drop 
the  pilot  ?  Or  will  the  officers  and  crew  decide 
to  throw  overboard  the  superfluous  passengers  ? 
Will  Mr.  George,  or  another,  follow  the  example 
of  Gilbert's  elderly  naval  man  by  devouring  the 
rest,  since  by  that  method  perfect  unity  could  be 
achieved  ?  All  these  courses  are  possible,  but 
I  do  not  think  it  is  the  Nancy  Brig  on  which  the 
Coalition  voyages.  I  have  in  mind  another 
ship  on  which  once  served  a  yet  more  famous 
and  more  ancient  mariner.  According  to  Cole- 
ridge it  had  at  one  time  none  but  dead  men  to 
navigate  it. 


269 


CERTAIN    ARTISTS 

A  CREATIVE  painter  or  designer,"  says 
Mr.  Wyndham  Lewis,  "  should  be  able 
to  exist  quite  satisfactorily  without  paper,  stone, 
or  paints,  or  without  lifting  a  finger  to  translate 
into  forms  and  colours  his  specialized  creative 
impulse." 

This  statement,  if  it  means  anything,  must 
mean  that  painters  can  cease  from  painting, 
and  that  a  creator  can  count  his  creation  complete 
when  he  has  told  his  friends  that  he  has  given 
birth  to  a  new  idea.  We  shall  soon  hear,  perhaps, 
that  the  Mansard  Galleries  have  been  taken  for 
a  show  of  ideas.  There  will  be  a  catalogue  and 
frames  and  a  shilling  admission,  but  there  will 
be  neither  visible  pictures  nor  statuary.  From 
the  catalogue  the  visitor  will  learn  that  frame 
number  one  encloses  somebody's  conception  of 
an  earthquake  in  E  flat,  whilst  the  table  in  the 
centre  of  the  room  supports  another's  notion  of 
the  odour  of  human  sweat  carried  out  in  white 
marble.  These  things  will  not,  so  to  speak, 
be  there,  but  if,  after  a  few  moments  of  study, 
you  do  not   perceive  them  with  all  your    five 

270 


CERTAIN        ARTISTS 

senses    at    once,  you    will    be    branded    as  an 
ignorant  ass. 

Personally,  I  welcome  the  prospect  of  such  an 
exhibition,  for  it  would  be  the  logical  outcome  of 
everything  that  has  been  preached  in  the  school 
of  non-representative  art.  It  has  been  insisted 
there  a  thousand  times  that  the  secret  of  art  is 
unlikeness  from  nature.  By  book  and  brush 
they  have  said  it.  Observe  the  portrait  of  a  poet, 
which  they  consider  one  of  their  masterpieces. 
You  know  whose  portrait  it  is,  because,  with  no 
little  pride,  the  poet  tells  you  about  it  himself. 
It  is  not,  of  course,  what  our  grandparents 
would  have  called  a  speaking  likeness,  but 
despite  a  malformation  of  the  mouth  and  a 
tendency  on  the  part  of  the  left  eye  to  grow 
rather  above  than  below  the  accompanying  eye- 
brow, it  is  evidently  a  human  head.  In  works 
devoted  to  rare  and  curious  diseases,  there  are 
to  be  found  photographs  of  persons  who  seem  to 
suffer  from  the  same  malady.  To  my  way  of 
thinking,  this  is  but  a  half-hearted  picture  and 
must  have  been  painted  by  an  individual  without 
the  courage  of  his  or  her  convictions.  If  he, 
or  she,  did  not  mean  to  represent  the  poet  so 
that  he  should  be  recognizable  to  his  friends,  it 
was  illogical  to  paint  a  head  which  all  the  world 

271 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

could  recognize  as  more  than  half  human.  An 
apple  or  a  pine  tree  or  a  centipede  would  have 
betokened  more  sincerity,  yet  to  all  three  there 
are  objections.  Apples  and  heads  are  both 
approximately  round,  and  the  other  two  objects 
named  may  both  have  points  of  resemblance 
to  poets  if  only  we  search  long  enough  for  them. 
The  only  way  to  be  thoroughly  non-representa- 
tive is  to  paint  nothing  at  all.  Leave  a  blank 
space  on  the  wall,  and  explain  in  the  catalogue 
what  is  supposed  to  be  there.  When  once  we 
have  grown  accustomed  to  exhibitions  of  ideas, 
we  shall  be  able  to  do  away  with  the  frames, 
and  a  little  later  to  cease  visiting  the  galleries. 
A  catalogue  by  post  will  be  enough.  At  my 
writing  table  I  shall  imagine  the  poet's  portrait ; 
and  in  his  studio  the  artist  will  be  hard  at  work 
imagining  it  too. 

Unfortunately,  Mr.  Wyndham  Lewis  and  his 
friends  seldom  mean  what  they  seem  to  say. 
Their  meaning  is  as  elusive  in  print  as  in  paint, 
and  in  all  probability  they  have  no  intention  of 
holding  the  exhibition  which  their  theories  should 
foreshadow.  Pitifully,  they  will  shrug  their 
shoulders,  and  say  that  I  do  not  understand 
them.  So  be  it ;  but  it  is  their  fault.  It  is  their 
business  to  make  themselves  understood  by  me 

272 


CERTAIN        ARTISTS 

and  by  mankind,  for  the  day  is  done  when  art 
could  be  the  property  of  a  coterie.  Half  a  dozen 
supercilious  critics  and  a  grande  dame  or  two 
are  no  longer  enough  to  be  a  painter's  public.  Art 
has  to  be  democratized.  Its  finer  points  may  be 
reserved  for  the  few,  and  its  very  finest  for  the 
creating  artist  himself,  but  its  mass-impression 
must  be  for  the  world.  With  art  it  is  the  same 
as  with  a  woman.  Something  of  her  should  be 
reserved  for  her  lover  alone,  something  else  for 
the  small  number  of  her  intimates,  but,  when  she 
walks  in  the  street,  her  beauty,  and  at  least  a 
portion  of  her  beauty's  meaning,  should  flash 
on  all  who  in  passing  see  her. 

Art  as  expounded  by  Mr.  Lewis  and  those  others 
is  as  meaningless  to  me  as  the  law  laid  down  in 
the  office  of  Messrs.  Lewis  and  Lewis.  I  am, 
however,  morally  certain  that  the  famous  firm  of 
solicitors  almost  always  comprehends  its  own 
jargon,  but  I  am  not  so  sure  that  as  much  can 
be  said  for  those  who  used  to  hold  forth  in  the 
pages  of  Blast.  I  will  even  go  further  and  ex- 
press a  doubt  whether  any  of  the  vorticist, 
cubist,  hexagonalist,  poet-neurotic,  neo-diabolic 
distortions  of  art  are  artistically  comprehensible 
to  any  West  European  man  or  woman,  or  to 
anyone  whose  family  has  lived  for  three  or  four 

273  s 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

generations  under  West  European  conditions  of 
life.  Had  the  war  continued  for  two  or  three 
more  years,  the  prolonged  horror  of  it  might 
have  eaten  right  into  our  heads,  and  either  given 
us  a  new  sense  or  else  deprived  us  of  some  of 
those  senses  we  still  possess.  We  might  have 
come  to  believe  that  beauty  was  hideousness, 
hideousness  beauty,  and  that  the  making  of  a 
new  hell  on  the  old  earth  was  an  aim  to  which 
art  should  substantially  contribute.  The  war 
ended  just  in  time.  Shell  shock  is  susceptible  to 
cure.  It  is  not  among  our  own  countrymen, 
not  among  the  races  culturally  near  to  us,  that 
the  great  innovators  are  to  be  found  to-day.  In 
the  work  of  a  Mestrovic  or  a  Meninski  one  can 
see  a  new  world  emerging,  though  the  pain  of 
the  old  world's  travail  is  still  about  it.  Lesser 
men  from  the  East  End  of  Europe,  whose  appren- 
ticeship to  civilization  has,  may  be,  been  spent 
in  the  scarcely  less  fearful  East  End  of  London, 
produce  what  at  first  sight  may  seem  mere 
pogroms  in  paint,  but  theirs  is  a  comprehensible 
barbarism.  Their  honesty  is  at  least  as  evident 
as  their  talent  or  their  genius.  They  chisel  or 
paint  something  that  in  very  truth  they  have 
seen  and  felt,  and  with  their  materials  they  reveal 
to    us    their    visions.     Mestrovic's    only    failure 

274 


CERTAIN        ARTISTS 


was  his  head  of  Rodin,  and  that  because  of  Rodin, 
a  West  European,  we  had  already  a  fixed  idea 
essentially  different  from  that  of  the  Jugo-Slav 
and  one  that  was  naturally  more  truthful.  Before 
the  pictures  painted  by  Russians,  Poles,  or 
Eastern  Jews,  I  realize  that  they  and  I  have 
no  common  ancestry.  Behind  them  are  genera- 
tions of  terror,  cruelty,  and  torture  of  soul  and 
body ;  behind  me,  centuries  in  which  wars, 
rebellions,  and  persecutions  have  been,  not  the 
stuff  of  life,  but  its  scattered  interludes.  It  is 
impossible  to  imagine  that  we  could  share  the 
same  idea  of  beauty.   It  is  evident  that  we  do  not. 

These  others  outrage  our  traditions  with 
the  zest  of  serfs  who  burn  the  lord's  hall,  of 
sansculottes  ravaging  Versailles,  of  rick-burners 
chortling  over  the  blaze  which  ends  the  farmer's 
harvest. 

Manet  used  to  say  that  one  year  one  painted 
violet  and  everybody  screamed,  and  that  next 
year  everybody  painted  more  violet.  The  scream- 
ing to-day  is  not  over  colours  or  shades  of  colours. 
The  new  men  from  the  East  are  nothing  if  not 
iconoclasts.  The  type  of  physical  perfection 
which  Greece  saw  in  a  race  not  its  own,  is  abhor- 
rent to  them  from  memories  of  repression  and 
victimization.     It  is  not  a  freak  of  the  studios, 

275 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

the  passing  of  the  golden-haired  girl  and  the  blue- 
eyed  boy  ;  it  is  the  end  of  a  dynasty.  It  is  the 
end  of  a  dynasty  enthroned  in  Europe  through 
all  the  ages  we  call  civilized.  These  alien  artists 
from  the  far  parts  of  the  earth  have  a  significance 
which  bursts  beyond  frame  and  canvas.  Soci- 
ally and  politically,  the  least  of  them  are  so 
ominous  that  questions  about  their  place  in  art 
are  impertinences. 

When  their  pictures  have  been  shown  in 
France,  the  French  have  smiled  enigmatically 
and  called  them  interesting.  When  a  French- 
man has  tried  to  paint  in  the  same  style,  his  com- 
patriots have  shrugged  their  shoulders,  called 
him  fumiste,  and  passed  by  on  the  other  side. 
In  their  opinion,  he  has  forgotten  what  art  is. 
He  has,  perhaps,  confounded  soot  with  paint, 
but,  anyhow,  there  is  no  need  to  take  him  seri- 
ously. In  England  we  have  not  established  a 
standard  by  which  to  judge  whether  a  man  is 
a  mountebank  or  not.  There  has  been  an 
English  school  of  painting,  or,  rather,  there  have 
been  many,  but  we  have  not  settled  what  is  the 
object  of  art.  We  have  not,  as  Sizeranne  said, 
pinned  our  faith  to  le  Beau  sans  phrases,  le 
Beau  sans  intentions,  and  so  we  are  always 
liable  to  go  astray.     When  somebody  says  to 

276 


CERTAIN        ARTISTS 

us  of  his  picture  that  that  is  "  how  he  sees  it  " 
we  have  no  apt  reply.  We  cannot  even  tell  him 
that  a  man  with  his  extraordinary  perception 
for  the  ugly  has  a  choice  open  between  suicide 
and  a  visit  to  the  oculist. 

But  we  of  the  West — French,  British,  or 
whatever  we  be — must  keep  intact  our  idea  of 
beauty,  and  in  our  art  we  must  pursue  it.  The 
non-representative  painters,  and  the  painters 
who  are  always  representing  something  else, 
have  been  anaesthetized.  Their  orgies  in  oils 
may  be  meant  for  revolutions  in  embryo,  but 
they  are  more  like  jig-saw  puzzles  in  disorder, 
and  their  affectations  of  Scythian  savagery  do 
not  even  redden  Chelsea's  lamp-posts.  All  their 
deformations  of  the  human  form  amount  to  no 
more  than  the  grotesqueries  of  nature  with  which 
showmen  have  always  amused  the  vulgar.  The 
half-barbaric  art  of  the  East  may  be  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  culture,  but  we  can  no  more  acclima- 
tize it  in  London  than  we  can  make  the  Volga 
flow  by  Maidenhead  past  the  Tate  Gallery. 
A  sense  of  humour  should  forbid  the  experiment, 
but  our  eccentrics  are  not  conscious  humorists. 
They  have  not  even  enough  of  it  to  carry  out 
their  own  theories  and  to  hang  their  empty 
frames  upon  the  walls. 

%17 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

"  The  arts  and  humanity "  says  Mr.  H.  J. 
Massingham,  "  must  become  man  and  wife." 
Never,  perhaps,  have  they  been  further  apart 
than  they  are  to-day.  Mr.  Wyndham  Lewis 
would  have  the  big  pubhc  "  not  taught,  but 
pohced,"  whilst  "  the  few  thousands  "  must  be 
trained  to  be  "a  responsive  chorus."  Between 
these  two  ideals  we  shall  have  to  choose,  and  it  is, 
I  think,  Mr.  Massingham  who  points  to  the 
better,  though  the  harder,  way.  From  the  fall 
of  Rome,  through  the  Middle  Ages,  art  kept 
civilization  alive,  and  art  may  do  the  same 
again  now  that  the  barbarian  hordes  are  loose 
once  more.  Beauty  is  nature's  subterfuge  for 
promoting  union  of  the  sexes.  The  artist,  too, 
though  he  can  free  himself  of  "  intentions,"  will 
bring  the  arts  and  humanity  together  when 
creation  of  the  beautiful  is  his  first  aim  and 
his  last. 


m 


DOCTORS    AND    NURSES 

SURGEONS  and  physicians  have  frequently 
been  styled  the  priests  of  humanity ; 
especially  surgeons.  Why  the  surgeon  has  com- 
manded a  greater  share  of  reverence  than  his 
learned  brother  of  pill  and  potion  I  do  not  know, 
but  it  is  certain  that  his  priestly  character  has 
more  often  been  proclaimed.  Perhaps  it  has 
been  because  he  is  cleanshaven,  or,  perhaps, 
because  the  multitude  still  connects  its  idea  of 
a  priesthood  with  sacrifices  of  blood.  Slowly, 
however,  we  are  veering  towards  a  new  view. 
Gradually  we  are  beginning  to  think  of  the 
medical  profession  in  a  new  light.  To-day  there 
are  some  bold  enough  to  say  that  it  would  be 
better  for  us  all  if,  by  legislation  or  any  other 
means,  the  men  of  medicine  could  be  turned 
from  being  the  priests  of  humanity  into  being 
its  ministers. 

In  the  profession  itself,  the  tradition  of  priest- 
liness  is  still  somewhat  fiercely  maintained.  No 
claims  of  Rome  have  ever  been  as  sweeping.  The 
dogma  of  medical  infallibility  is  not  limited  by 
its  application  to  the  President  of  the  Royal 

279 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

College  of  Surgeons  or  to  any  other  single  person, 
but  is  spread  in  public  view  to  cover  every  indi- 
vidual who  has  qualified  to  practice  the  art  and 
mystery  and  has  not  actually  been  unfrocked. 
In  camera,  of  course,  the  faults  of  poor  old  Dr. 
Jones,  or  the  follies  of  young  Mr.  Brown,  may  be 
largely  discussed.  Mortality  among  their  patients 
may  be  terrific,  but  esprit  de  corps  forbids  any 
kind  member  of  the  profession  to  proclaim  to  all 
and  sundry  the  truth  that  Jones  is  uncleanly, 
senile,  or  drink-sodden,  or  that  Brown's  experi- 
ments, interesting  as  they  are,  show  more  thirst 
for  knowledge  than  scientific  exactitude.  Ex- 
communication, the  expunging  of  a  name  from 
the  register,  is  a  rare  event.  More  often  the 
extreme  step  seems  to  be  taken  for  an  offence 
against  the  profession  than  for  a  mishandling 
of  the  patient.  Doctors,  like  Popes,  occa- 
sionally commit  crimes,  but  that  they  err  in 
diagnosis  or  treatment  is  seldom  or  never  part 
of  the  evidence  put  before  a  jury. 

A  thousand  years  hence  medical  knowledge 
may  be  standardized.  We  may  then  know  that 
certain  treatments  cure,  or,  better  still,  prevent, 
certain  ills  of  the  flesh,  just  as  two  and  two  make 
four,  not  sometimes,  but  always.  I  have  a 
friend  who  is  about  to  undergo  a  serious  opera- 

280 


DOCTORS        AND        NURSES 

tion  at  the  hands  of  one  of  London's  most  famous 
surgeons.  He  is,  I  suppose,  lucky  to  be  able 
to  afford  it,  but  that  operation  is  stigmatized 
as  a  fraud  in  the  lectures  which  another  of  our 
most  famous  surgeons  delivers  to  his  pupils. 
These  things  in  the  year  1920  cannot  be  wholly 
concealed  from  the  world.  The  medical  student 
at  his  hospital  is  taught  certain  theories,  but, 
whilst  he  learns  them,  he  trembles  lest  they  may 
be  anathema  to  those  who  anon  will  examine 
him.  Again,  it  is  notoriously  easier  to  obtain 
a  qualification  from  one  corporation  than  from 
another.  We  are  surrounded  by  medical  men 
who  have  not  even  started  from  the  same 
level.  Some  begin  on  the  bare  minimum  of 
knowledge  ;  some  on  something  more.  They  are 
at  odds  with  each  other  on  matters  which  are 
life  and  death  to  us.  They  are  doing  their  best, 
each  in  his  own  way,  but  all  of  them  cannot  be 
infallible.  The  only  honest  course  is  to  admit 
that  their  science  has  as  yet  scarcely  passed  from 
its  chrysalis  stage. 

Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  has  said  that  medicine  is  a 
conspiracy,  but  that  it  is  no  more  a  conspiracy 
than  are  all  the  other  professions  and  other 
businesses.  He  has  understated  his  case.  In 
politics    the    differences    of   parties    are    loudly 

281 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

proclaimed,  and  in  religion  the  clash  of  creeds 
is  not  concealed.  Even  in  letters,  no  social  dis- 
abilities are  as  yet  attached  to  those  who  own 
to  preference  for  Miss  Sitwell  over  Mr.  Shanks. 
Unfortunately,  there  are,  practically,  no  avowed 
dissenters  in  medicine.  The  individual  does  not 
openly  break  away  from  the  crowd,  for  if  he 
does  so,  the  heresy-hunt  will  be  hot  on  his  heels. 
Hypnotists  who  are  not  humbugs  and  bone- 
setters  who  are  not  bunglers  are  known  to  exist, 
but  it  is  for  their  very  abilities  that  they  are  per- 
secuted by  the  orthodox.  It  is  the  spirit  of 
ca'canny.  None  must  obviously  break  the  uni- 
formity of  the  ranks,  lest  others  without  the  gift 
or  skill  should  be  discredited.  The  general  prac- 
titioner in  Peckham  and  the  specialist  in  Old 
Parr  Street  make  a  show  of  using  the  same 
methods.  Both  speak  the  same  language  which 
is  Greek  to  the  public,  and  which  in  very  fact 
is  Greek  of  sorts.  The  Old  Parr  Street  man  may 
speak  it  far  more  fluently  than  his  cousin  of  the 
suburbs,  but  the  two  unite  against  the  audacious 
fellow  who  would  baffle  them  both  with  Bantu 
or   Chinese. 

No  salvation  outside  the  British  Medical 
Association  is  graven  on  the  backs  of  thou- 
sands of  brass  plates.    Not  long  ago  a  woman 

282 


DOCTORS        AND        NURSES 

with  a  sick  child  took  it  for  treatment  to  a 
hospital.  Also  she  took  it  to  Lourdes,  though 
this  change  of  air  had  not  been  included  in  the 
prescription.  Strange  to  say,  the  child  made  a 
complete  recovery,  and  in  the  devout  household 
there  was  a  talk  of  a  miracle.  Between  the 
partisans  of  divine  and  human  healing  there 
was  acrimonious  discussion.  The  doctors  said 
"  Mumbo  Jumbo  "  ;  they  also  said  "  Hocus 
Pocus."  What  the  priest  said  I  have  not  heard, 
but,  perhaps,  it  was  "  Pseudo-Paraplegia,"  or 
something  which  sounds  equally  abusive.  No- 
body suggested  sharing  the  honours.  Nobody 
hinted  that  it  was  a  matter  of  taste  about  which 
there  should  be  no  disputing.  There  was  not  a 
pot  that  did  not  boil  over  with  calling  the  kettles 
black  charlatans. 

Nothing  in  the  medical  conspiracy  is  more 
remarkable  than  the  care  the  higher  ranks  have 
for  the  lower.  The  specialist  frowns  on  the 
patient  who  rings  his  front-door  bell  without 
having  previously  submitted  himself  to  the  doctor, 
or  doctor  by  courtesy,  who  earns  a  living  from  his 
cure  of  bodies  in  the  district  where  the  patient 
resides.  It  is  as  though  a  candidate  for  con- 
firmation were  found  kneeling  at  the  Bishop's 
fe^t   without   a   proper   introduction   from   the 

283 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

parish  priest.  The  lower  ranks  reciprocate  with 
a  care  for  the  higher  that  is  pathetic.  The 
medical  student  who  may  have  to  spend  his  life 
in  one  desperate  struggle  to  make  both  ends 
meet  in  a  villa  not  large  enough  for  one  of  them, 
will  fulminate  against  schemes  for  a  State  Medical 
Service  which  will  insure  him  a  living  wage,  but 
may  tend  to  make  the  big-wigs  think  in  terms 
of  the  Ford  rather  than  of  the  Rolls-Royce.  If 
this  be  not  pure  altruism,  it  is  altruism  syndi- 
cated. From  top  to  bottom  the  profession  dreads 
State  Control,  but  it  is  bound  to  come,  and  it 
is  vain  for  the  medical  man  to  talk  of  his  inde- 
pendence. He  is  not  independent  now.  He  is 
under  the  necessity  of  cultivating  the  rich  lady 
of  middle-age  who  is  safe  to  be  ailing  for  the 
next  score  of  years.  Just  as  in  the  days  of  Dr. 
Brand  Firmin,  there  is  a  path  for  him  to  success 
through  courtship  of  rank  and  wealth.  Once 
at  the  top  of  the  tree,  he  can,  of  course,  be  free, 
but  he  can  never  hope  to  reach  those  upper 
branches  unless  he  begins  life  with  an  unearned 
income  or  a  double  dose  of  asceticism  in  his 
nature.  The  newly  qualified  man  is  usually 
human,  and,  at  twenty-seven  or  so,  is,  probably, 
thinking  about  marriage  and  a  home.  That 
means    general    practice,    mediocrity   and  pro- 

284 


DOCTORS        AND        NURSES 

longed  care  for  other  people's  stomach  aches, 
unless  he  has  money  behind  him.  The  necessary 
years  of  financially  unproductive  study  which 
lead  to  the  eminence  of  Old  Parr  Street  are  out 
of  the  question  for  the  average  young  medico. 
He  has  to  shut  out  of  his  vision  the  idea  of  ever 
being  able  to  tell  the  hypochondriac  to  go  pinch 
himself  or  of  warning  sufferers  from  the  fidgets 
against  wasting  his  time  and  their  money. 

Most  of  what  he  has  learned  he  will  soon  for- 
get in  the  traintrain  of  cut  fingers,  obstetrics, 
and  death  certificates,  but  it  is  to  him  that  most 
of  us  have  to  resort.  The  rich  can  afford  better 
advice.  The  hospitals  can  deal  with  but  a  frac- 
tion of  the  poor,  and  for  the  sake  of  their  finances 
must  give  preference  to  those  who  have  letters 
of  recommendation  from  subscribers.  That  there 
should  be  not  one  but  several  grades  of  medicine 
for  the  community  is  as  absurd  as  though  pure 
water  was  provided  for  the  Duke  of  Westminster, 
whilst  unfiltered  Thames  was  considered  good 
enough  for  me.  I  know  no  more  glaring  example 
of  the  truth  that  we  have  not  as  a  nation  yet 
begim  to  understand  the  A  B  C  of  demo- 
cratic principles  than  this  calm  acceptance  of 
inequality  in  the  means  of  preserving  bodies. 

The  doctor  of  the  future,  paid  by  the  State, 

285 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

will  be,  amongst  other  things,  a  St.  George 
against  the  dragon  of  insanitary  conditions. 
His  interest  will  be  not  merely  to  keep  us  alive, 
but  to  keep  us  in  such  good  health  that  he  can 
spend  at  least  half  his  days  on  the  links  and 
nearly  all  his  nights  in  bed.  His  forerunner,  the 
Medical  Officer  of  Health,  is  too  often  the  victim 
of  a  compromise,  and  still  may  have  to  eke  out 
his  living  by  private  practice.  Local  Authorities 
have  been  known  to  appoint  him  because  he  is 
reputed  to  have  no  olfactory  nerves,  and,  conse- 
quently, will  make  no  fuss  about  their  drains. 
Should  his  sense  of  smell  suddenly  develop,  he 
will  not  have  the  benefit  of  their  children's 
next  attack  of  measles.  The  National  Officer  of 
Health  must  be  put  beyond  such  temptations, 
and  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  he  be  the  minister 
we  need.  The  only  other  alternative  is  that 
the  doctor  should  be  in  very  truth  a  priest,  and 
a  celibate  priest  at  that,  under  vows  of  poverty. 
Of  the  two  evils  I  do  not  doubt  the  profession 
will  choose  the  least,  or  that  which  is  the  least 
to  them. 

My  medical  friends  tell  me,  by  the  way,  that  a 
doctor  on  a  fixed  salary  will  neglect  his  patients 
when  no  extra  guineas  or  half-crowns  are  to  be 
drawn  from  them.    They  underrate  human  nature, 

286 


DOCTORS        AND        NURSES 

including  their  own  share  of  it.  But  if  some 
few  show  themselves  unworthy,  let  them  be 
brought  before  a  Court  Medical  and  expelled 
with  ignominy  from  the  service  of  their  kind  for 
conduct  unbecoming  to  a  good  citizen  and  a 
servant  of  humanity.  "  When,"  as  Herrick  says, 
"  the  learned  doctor  sees  not  one  hope  but  in 
his  fees,"  it  is  time  to  leave  the  invalid  to  die 
in  the  decent  privacy  of  the  family  circle. 

Talking  of  such  matters,  I  am  reminded  that 
the  nurses,  who  really  form  another  branch  of 
the  medical  profession,  have  recently  formed  a 
trade  union.  Good  luck  to  them.  They  have 
long  been  shamefully  underpaid,  but  I  am  afraid 
they  cannot  have  it  both  ways.  They  cannot 
at  once  be  good  trade  unionists  and  ministering 
angels  as  well.  A  woman  may  tend  the  sick  for 
a  substantial  fee  and  do  her  work  efficiently, 
or  she  may  tend  them  for  love  and  do  it  divinely. 
The  present  situation  is  indefensible.  Nurses  are 
ill-paid,  and  even  an  abstract  love  of  humanity 
is  not  encouraged  by  their  training  and  by  the 
scolding  and  bullying  they  endure  in  their  novici- 
ate. They  are  tried  to  prove  their  worth,  but 
theirs  is  a  trial  which  does  not  refine  but  coarsens. 
Miss  Tennyson  Jesse  was  right  when  some  months 
ago  she  wrote  that  nursing,  as  at  present  prac- 

287 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

tised,  brings  out  all  that  is  worst  in  woman's 
character,  that  worst  being  a  love  of  authority 
and  of  domination  ;  of  driving  instead  of  leading. 

The  professional  nurse  dares  not  be  pitiful. 
If  she  has  to  be  hard  in  the  operating  theatre, 
equally  must  she  be  hard  by  the  bedside ;  it  is 
ten  to  one  she  will  be  hard  everywhere  else, 
even  if  she  has  the  luck  to  marry  the  house- 
surgeon.  If  I  could  not  have  one  who  loved 
me  to  be  my  nurse,  I  would  have  a  sceur  de 
charite  who,  in  place  of  loving  me,  loved  God 
and  His  Mother,  and  if  I  could  have  neither, 
I  would  have  one  of  those  cheerful  looking  V.  A.D. 
girls  whom  I  used  to  see  about  the  camps,  for, 
possibly,  she  might  treat  me  as  a  man  and  a 
brother.  Failing  all  these,  send  some  male  being 
to  look  after  me,  for  then,  if  he  were  to  browbeat 
me,  I  could,  and  would,  swear  at  him,  though  a 
credo  or  a  confiteor  were  more  proper  to  my 
station  on  the  edge  of  life.  Only  from  that 
professionalism  which  lies  ambushed  behind  stiff 
bibs  and  aprons,  which  would  treat  me  as  a 
case,  whilst  itself  expecting  to  be  treated  as  a 
lady,  may  I  always  be  delivered. 

Nursing  was  long  held  to  be  almost  the  only 
profession  suited  to  the  average  woman.  It  is 
almost   the   only   one   from   whicl>,   in   existing 

288 


DOCTORS        AND        NURSES 

circumstances,  I  would  exclude  nine  women  out 
of  ten.  Let  nurses  be  paid  as  well  as  really  good 
cooks  or  moderately  good  ballet  dancers,  and  then 
will  be  removed  from  them  the  temptation  to  feel 
that  in  smoothing  my  pillows  they  are  conferring 
a  favour  on  men  and  on  the  human  race  to  which 
I  belong.  Finally,  let  it  be  realized  that  none  is 
fit  to  be  a  professional  nurse  save  that  rare  one 
who  with  strength  of  mind  and  body  combines 
indestructible  gentleness  of  soul. 


289 


THE    LITERARY    CRITICS 

RATHER  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago 
there  was  published  at  Oxford  a  pam- 
phlet entitled  Advice  to  a  Young  Reviewer. 
Its  author,  Copplestone,  then  fellow  of  Oriel, 
and  afterwards  Bishop  of  Llandaff,  was  a 
man  of  wit  and  learning,  and  the  plan  he 
followed  was  that  of  Defoe  in  his  Shortest  Way 
with  the  Dissenters.  Ironically  advocating  all 
the  common  tricks  which  critics  were,  and  are, 
capable  of  using  when,  as  Dr.  Johnson  wrote, 
they  stand  "  Sentinels  in  the  avenue  of  fame," 
he  reduced  them  to  absurdity.  At  the  end  of  the 
pamphlet  he  showed  how,  with  a  little  ingenuity 
and  a  few  facetious  touches,  a  poem  by  Milton 
could  be  made  to  seem  no  more  than  balderdash. 
Reviewers,  young  and  old,  probably  took  it  all 
as  an  excellent  joke,  and  forgot  it  as  soon  as  their 
serious  work  began  again  with  the  arrival  of  a 
new  volume. 

There  are,  as  he  pointed  out,  a  dozen  or  more 
easy  ways  in  which  a  critic  can  make  himself 
appear  clever  whilst  demonstrating  that  his 
victim  is  a  fool.     If  the  author  be  amusing,  he 

290 


THE     LITERARY     CRITICS 

can  be  censured  for  levity  ;  if  he  be  serious,  he 
can  be  pilloried  for  dulness.  Should  he  be 
modest,  he  is  a  nobody  ;  should  he  write  of  himself 
and  his  opinions,  he  is  a  conceited  egoist.  If 
his  subject  is  unknown  to  you,  pillage  his  pre- 
face, and  give  yourself  an  air  of  wisdom  by  refer- 
ences to  the  authorities  he  quotes  himself.  Above 
all,  do  not  forget  that  his  work  is  bound  to  con- 
tain phrases  which,  if  torn  from  the  context, 
will  appear  absurd.  Finally,  to  show  your  good 
heart,  say  that  he  will  make  a  passable  success 
if  he  will  in  the  future  only  do  this  or  that  for 
which  he  obviously  has  no  inclination. 

Almost  I  am  tempted  to  wonder  whether 
Copplestone,  like  Defoe,  may  not  by  some  have 
been  taken  seriously,  and  his  advice  followed  to 
the  letter.  So  unfortunate  have  been  the  critics 
in  their  struggles  with  the  creators  that  many 
are  deceived  into  imagining  the  former  as  a  tribe 
of  simpletons.  Nothing  could  be  further  from 
the  truth.  Literary  criticism  has  ever  attracted 
men  of  high  talent,  well  versed  in  books  and 
affairs.  What  should  be  realized  is  that  nine  out 
of  ten  of  them  have  always  represented  the  party 
of  tradition,  or,  at  least,  of  things  as  they  are. 
They  are  the  defenders.  Great  creative  writers, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  commonly  breakers  of 

291 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

fresh  ground  and  of  rules.  They  are  the  aggres- 
sors, and  the  world  has  seldom  been  prepared 
for  them.  Conflict  between  such  forces  is  in- 
evitable, and  so  is  its  result.  Only  when  the 
world  stands  still  will  the  conventional  critic 
be  right  in  the  end. 

Reading  carefully  the  savage  criticisms  which 
Blackwood's  reviewers  once  directed  at  the 
"  Cockney  School,"  one  can  see  they  are  no  mere 
riot  of  ink-slinging.  The  "  Prometheus  Un- 
bound "  was  called  a  "  pestiferous  mixture  of 
blasphemy,  sedition,  and  sensuality,"  but  this 
attack,  or,  rather,  counter-attack,  was  not  made 
by  a  dolt.  The  writer  was  blind  to  no  poetic 
excellence.  He  acknowledged  magnificence  in  de- 
scription, sublimity  in  eloquence,  and  "  beauties 
of  the  highest  order."  He  was,  in  fact,  a  reason- 
ably good  judge  of  literary  merit,  but,  being  a 
shrewd  man,  he  saw  in  Shelley  the  prophet  as 
well  as  the  poet.  When  he  turned  to  Keats 
and  Leigh  Hunt,  he  simply  wrote  of  the  "  drivel- 
ling imbecihty  "  of  the  one,  and  of  the  "  low 
birth  "  of  the  other.  They  might  be  overturning 
poetic  traditions  in  which  he  had  been  reared, 
but  outside  bookish  circles  their  influence  would 
be  nil.  He  might  loathe,  but  he  did  not  dread, 
them.     They,  he  trusted,  might  be  laughed  out 

292 


THE     LITERARY     CRITICS 

of  court,  but,  on  the  more  dangerous  Shelley, 
he  thought  it  worth  while  to  pour  the  mingled 
stream  of  invective  and  flattery. 

Jeffreys,  bemoaning  in  the  Edinburgh  that 
Moore's  verses  were  an  insult  to  female 
delicacy,  or  telling  Wordsworth  that  "  this  will 
never  do,"  is  an  only  less  significant  figure.  At 
a  later  date,  the  reviewers  in  the  Quarterly  are, 
however,  seen  yet  more  clearly  to  be  on  the 
defensive.  In  1848  Charlotte  Bronte  was  accused 
by  them  of  "  the  highest  moral  offence  a  novel 
writer  can  commit,  that  of  making  an  unworthy 
character  interesting  in  the  eyes  of  the  reader." 
In  a  poet,  perhaps,  this  would  have  been  no 
offence.  Milton  could  make  Lucifer  the  hero 
of  an  epic,  but  the  novelist,  with  a  presumably 
wider  public,  must  use  more  restraint.  Jane 
Eyre,  moreover,  was  said  to  be  "  pre-eminently 
an  anti-Christian  composition,"  and  the  reason 
frankly  given  is  that  it  contains  "  murmurings 
against  the  comforts  of  the  rich  and  against  the 
privations  of  the  poor."  Surely  it  must  have 
been  the  same  critic  who  twelve  years  afterwards 
took  George  Eliot  to  task  for  writing  "  fictions 
which  fill  the  mind  with  details  of  imaginary 
vice  and  distress  and  crime."  The  use  of  the 
word  "  imaginary  "  is  subtle.     The  defender  of 

293 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

the  England  of  1860  asked  his  readers  to  believe 
that  vice,  distress,  and  crime  were  but  things 
imagined. 

If  a  new  Copplestone  should  write  a  pamphlet 
telling  authors  how  to  please  critics,  he  would  first 
instruct  them  to  avoid  originality.  He  would, 
also,  implore  them  to  resemble,  at  least  super- 
ficially, somebody,  or  anybody,  with  whose  works 
every  reviewer  is  supposed  to  be  familiar.  "  Give 
them,"  he  would  say,  "  a  chance  to  show  their 
knowledge  of  the  classics  whilst  praising  you, 
and  praise  you  they  will."  Almost  the  last  of 
our  poets  to  gain  wide  and  rapid  recognition 
from  the  critical  brotherhood  was  Stephen  Phillips. 
For  the  sake  of  his  "  Paolo  and  Francesca,"  Mr. 
Churton  Collins  in  the  Saturday  Review  gave  him 
kinship  with  Sophocles  and  Dante.  In  the  World 
Mr.  William  Archer  declared  that  in  "  Herod  " 
he  heard  "  the  elder  Dumas  speaking  with  the 
voice  of  Milton."  An  anonymous  contributor 
to  the  Daily  Chronicle  found  that  "  Christ  in 
Hades  "  was  a  union  of  Sophoclean  simplicity 
and  Lucretian  solemnity,  with  Vergilian  result. 

It  may  occasionally  be  well  to  astonish  the 
bourgeois,  but  the  English  writer  who  desires 
a  "  good  press  "  must  spring  no  surprise  on  the 
reviewers.     A    few    years    before    the    Stephen 

294 


THE     LITERARY     CRITICS 

Phillips  boom,  Francis  Thompson  had  been 
guilty  of  this  mistake.  I  have  by  me  an  old 
number  of  the  Quarterly  in  which  he  is  curtly 
mentioned  in  an  article  on  "  Minor  Poets."  His 
affection  for  strange  words  provokes  some  lines 
of  adverse  comment,  and  he  is  rated  as  inferior 
to  Messrs.  Kipling  and  Gilbert,  as  the  equal  of 
Sir  Edwin  Arnold  and  Mr.  Le  Gallienne,  and  only 
definitely  above  the  versifiers  of  the  Referee, 
Had  he  been  a  Russian,  a  Scandinavian,  or  a 
Hindu,  he  would  have  fared  better.  Novelty, 
obscurity,  even  lunacy,  may  be  welcomed  in  these 
people.  Mere  acquaintance  with  them  is  a  feather 
in  the  reviewer's  cap.  Knowing  that  he  is  not 
expected  to  understand  them,  he  displays  his 
true  feelings  of  Athanasian  reverence  for  their 
incomprehensibility,  but  from  his  countrymen 
he  demands  all  the  simplicity  promised  by 
the  advertisers  of  the  hire-purchase  system  of 
furnishing. 

No  doubt  it  will  be  claimed  that  in  this  "  young 
man's  age  "  a  change  has  come  over  the  critical 
spirit.  Undergraduates  have  become  the  guard- 
ians of  Parnassus,  and  the  amusing  prattle  of 
Miss  Daisy  Ashford  commands  the  attention  of 
a  literary  world  which  seems  to  be  slipping  into 
its  second  childhood.     Did  this  mean  that  Eng- 

295 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

lish  criticism  had  suddenly  become  receptive  to 
new  ideas,  one  could  forgive  even  its  most  glar- 
ing faults,  but  the  truth  is  far  different.  Any  old 
idea  -will  do,  and  complete  absence  of  ideas  is 
by  no  means  unpardonable  ;  only  in  the  writer's 
name  is  novelty  demanded.  At  thirty  or  there- 
abouts, one  feels  old  in  this  land  of  letters.  Al- 
ready one  has  seen  the  bubble  reputation  pricked 
so  many  times  ;  so  many  more  bubbles  are  being 
blown  to  vanish.  Mr.  Wells  and  Mr.  Bennett 
have  both  been  condemned  to  death  as  "  com- 
mercial "  novelists,  for  success  with  the  public 
is  of  all  things  the  most  odious  to  the  reviewing 
coterie  whose  power  it  destroys.  Mr.  Galsworthy, 
too,  has  fallen  from  favour.  Every  esprit  fort 
who  has  composed  a  battle  song  in  a  govern- 
ment office  rails  at  him  for  maudlin  sentiment. 
Others,  whose  reputations  were  only  in  the 
making  when  war  began,  are  simply  forgotten. 
Mr.  Conrad,  of  course,  continues  to  be  rever- 
enced, but  Mr.  Conrad  had  the  fortune  to  be 
born  a  Pole.  Had  he  been  born  in  Kent  or 
Cumberland,  he,  too,  might  have  been  relegated 
to  the  shelf. 

One  reputable  critic  has  recently  assured  his 
readers  that  "  What  we  like,  we  really  do  like." 
It  would  scarcely  have  been  possible  to  own  in 

296 


THE     LITERARY     CRITICS 

print  that  "  What  we  like,  we  really  don't  like,'* 
yet  of  the  reality  of  critics'  likes  and  dislikes  I 
am  always  a  little  doubtful.  Are  the  Russians 
and  those  others  truly  beloved  ?  Does  Mr. 
Squire  verily  desire  to  tar  and  to  feather  Mr. 
Shaw,  or  is  the  editor  of  the  London  Mercury  only 
celebrating  his  coming  of  age  by  a  bonfire  of 
his  infancy's  tutelary  idols  ?  These  questions 
must  go  unanswered,  but  the  new  Copplestone 
must  add  one  cautionary  passage  to  his  "  Advice 
to  a  Young  Author."  He  must  give  warning 
that  the  warmer  a  reviewer's  praise,  the  shorter 
is  its  duration. 

The  average  length  of  a  reputation  in  this 
century  seems  to  be  from  three  to  five  years^ 
Should  you,  in  critical  company,  mention  any- 
one who  has  been  writing  for  a  longer  period, 
you  are  met  by  an  effort  at  polite  attention  and 
by  a  very  bored  smile.  You  and  the  author 
you  quote  are  vieuxjeu.  Recently,  an  American 
poet  has  had  some  of  his  work  published  in 
England,  and  in  several  quarters  has  been  rightly 
acclaimed  as  a  man  of  high  talent,  a  head  and 
shoulders  above  most  of  our  own  puling  bards 
and  nursery  rhymers,  but  his  enormous  debt 
to  Mr.  Chesterton  has  /been  barelv  noticed. 
Mr.    Chesterton    belongs    to   yesterday.    He    is 

297 


ABOUT       IT       AND        ABOUT 

mutton  to  the  critics.  The  old  affect  to  have 
forgotten  him,  and  the  young  would  have  us 
believe  they  have  never  read  him. 

Is  it,  I  wonder,  jealousy  ?  Not  conscious, 
calculating,  vulgar  jealousy,  but  just  dislike  of 
the  thought  that  any  man  or  woman  should 
gather  more  than  the  little  bunch  of  laurels 
presented  by  the  critics  themselves  ?  For  the 
little  talents  they  have  their  golden  rain  of 
adjectives,  but  of  the  thing  that  is  big,  and  may 
grow  bigger,  they  are  afraid.  When  the  first 
shower  of  classical  comparisons  and  of  hyper- 
bolism  is  over,  the  reviewer  is  as  one  penitent 
after  a  debauch.  He  returns  to  his  regular 
business  of  planing  down  to  mediocrity.  "  Thus 
far  shall  they  go,  and  no  further,"  are,  I  think, 
the  words  he  writes  on  the  blotting  pad  in  front 
of  him. 

Still  he  stands  a  "  sentinel  in  the  avenue  of 
fame,"  but,  though  he  delay  a  few  and  plot  to 
let  a  few  more  pass,  the  last  word  is  not  with  him. 
Still  he  practices  all  the  old  tricks  and  irrele- 
vancies.  Even  in  the  most  reputable  of  the 
critical  organs  I  have  lately  seen  a  book  damned 
for  a  fault  of  the  binder,  and  all,  perhaps,  because 
its  author  was  a  straight  speaking  man  without 
respect  for  the  little  gods.     On  the  whole,  how- 

298 


THE     LITERARY     CRITICS 

ever,  Mr.  Sneer  may  be  a  trifle  less  malevolent 
than  of  old,  but  Mr.  Puff  is  more  maleficent 
than  ever.  Make  no  mistake ;  Puff  is  the  worst 
of  the  twain.  More  talented  writers  die  of 
swelled  head  than  of  empty  stomachs.  It  is 
not,  alas,  every  author  who  knows  that  "  re- 
views "  only  matter  to  him  commercially,  and 
are  no  more  relevant  to  him  as  a  man  of  letters 
than  are  his  laundry  bills. 


299 


REVOLUTION  ? 

IT  is  said  that  Britain  has  passed  through 
a  silent  revolution.  There  has  been  no 
storming  of  the  Bastille,  no  Terror,  no  Ther- 
midor,  but  those  of  us  who  for  the  last  few 
years  have  been  abroad  on  active  service  are 
asked  to  believe  that  in  our  absence  some  Pros- 
pero  has  been  at  work  on  our  island.  Every- 
thing has  been  altered.  When  the  demobilized 
soldier  landed  at  Folkestone  or  whatever  was  his 
port  of  disembarkation,  he  set  foot  in  an  un- 
familiar country,  and,  if  he  had  expected  to  see 
"  earth's  increase  and  foison  plenty,"  he  was 
probably  disappointed.  For  having  so  set  his 
hopes,  he  is  scarcely  to  be  blamed.  A  thousand 
times  he  had  been  assured  that  Britain  would 
always  be  his  debtor,  and  that  when  peace 
came  nothing  would  be  too  good  for  him.  A 
civilian  again,  he  looks  for  signs  of  a  promise 
faithfully  fulfilled.  He  finds  high  prices,  the 
housing  difficulty,  and,  in  many  walks  of  life, 
scarcity  of  employment.  Are  these  things  the 
fruits  of  revolution  ? 

As  an  ex-service  man  he  has,  also,  his  own 

800 


REVOLUTION? 


special  grievances.  That  the  care  of  the  blind 
should  be  left  to  Sir  Arthur  Pearson  and  private 
benevolence,  instead  of  being  a  first  charge  on  the 
State,  may  impress  him  unfavourably.  That 
"  Village  Centres  "  and  other  places  for  the  train- 
ing of  the  disabled  should  precariously  depend 
on  charity,  or,  if  one  prefer  the  word,  gratitude, 
is  equally  unsatisfactory.  In  all  such  matters,  of 
course,  tradition  has  been  followed.  "  Easier 
to  plead  from  the  kindly  than  to  mulct  the  cur- 
mudgeon." So  it  was  after  all  the  old  wars,  but 
the  Great  War  was  supposed  to  be  different  from 
the  rest.  Vaguely,  fatuously,  people  say  there 
is  "  something  wrong  somewhere  "  when  they 
hear  of  a  Mons  veteran  shivering  from  shell 
shock  in  Newington  workhouse,  and  "  something," 
doubtless,  wilWbe  done  for  the  individual  sufferer, 
but  one  had  expected  the  revolution  to  establish 
a  system  under  which  there  would  be  no  need  for 
piecemeal  beneficence.  The  appeals  for  un- 
employed officers  have  become  an  affront  to 
national  dignity.  The  world  is  moved  to  hear 
of  honours  paid  to  the  dead  at  the  Whitehall 
Cenotaph ;  it  ought  not  to  be  left  to  Mr.  George 
Robey,  nor  yet  to  Earl  Haig,  to  plead  the  cause 
of  the  living.  That,  at  least,  is  the  view  taken 
by  one  who  has  served. 

801 


ABOUT        IT       AND        ABOUT 

After  a  few  weeks  at  home  the  late  soldier 
notes  a  subtle  change  in  the  attitude  adopted  to 
his  order.     A  newspaper,  after  years  of  blandish- 
ment, gravely  warns  him  not  to  play  the  hero. 
He  is  adjured  to  remember  how  much  has  been 
done  for  him,  and  to  be  a  good  boy.     Sudden 
anxiety   is    evinced   for   those   who   have   been 
"  carrying  on  "  in  England,  though  a  little  while 
ago  their  services  were  unduly  disparaged,  and 
they  were  accused,   often  unjustly,  of  shirking 
their    duties.     Now,    there    is    no    tribunal    to 
question  their  indispensability.     They  know  their 
business  from  alpha  to  omega,  whilst  he  who  has 
just  put  off  khaki  has  probably  forgotten  all  he 
ever  knew.     The  wretched  character  of  the  old 
soldier  is  another  British  tradition  not  yet  out- 
lived.    Faith  in  the  intrinsic  value  of  military 
training  has  not  filtered  down  from  the  higher 
minds  of  Mr.  Blatchford  and  Earl  Curzon  to  the 
majority  of  the  employing  class. 

When  the  native  returns,  he  wonders  whether 
the  revolution  might  not  have  been  postponed 
until  he  could  have  had  a  hand  in  it.  He  charges 
its  authors  with  sins  of  omission  and  commission. 
Old  Prospero,  retreating  to  his  easy  chair  after 
much  vigorous  waving  of  his  staff,  is  also  dis- 
appointed.    "  The  war,"  he  used  to  say,  "  will 

302 


REVOLUTION? 


do  so  much  good  to  us  all ;  particularly  to  those 
who  are  young  enough  to  fight  in  it."  He  had 
talked  and  written  earnestly  of  the  comradeship 
of  the  trenches.  It  was  going  to  solve  labour 
problems  more  deftly  than  Lord  Askwith  and  a 
whole  series  of  round-table  conferences.  Pros- 
pero  had  conceived  the  syndicalist  "  hand  '* 
splitting  a  last  biscuit  with  the  cotton  thread 
millionaire,  and  the  cotton  thread  millionaire 
vowing  to  go  halves  in  everything  with  everybody 
for  evermore.  And  then,  he  had  thought  of  the 
Cockney  cad  losing  his  caddishness  in  admiration 
for  his  company  commander,  and  dedicating  the 
rest  of  a  fine  life  to  the  service  of  the  officially 
designated  officer  class.  Whenever  he  waved 
his  staff,  he  saw  pictures  like  that.  He  even 
thought  it  no  bad  thing  that  those  brave  fellows 
should  return  to  an  island  where  they  would  be 
given  some  chance  to  repeat  their  deeds  of  self- 
sacrifice. 

The  only  comradeship  Prospero  can  now  per- 
ceive is  a  cohesion  in  resentment  against  himself. 
Unreasonable  demands  are  made  on  him.  Do 
these  young  men  realize  that  the  wealth  of  the 
nation  was  blown  to  blazes  a  dozen  times  over 
on  the  Somme,  Ypres  Salient,  and  Vimy  Ridge  ? 
Have  they  no  inkling  of  political  economy  to 

303 


ABOUT        IT        AND        ABOUT 

tell  them  that  all  this  was  unproductive  expen- 
diture ?  Do  they  not  understand  that  the  nations' 
productive  powers  are  all  mortgaged  up  to  the 
hilt  ?  I  sympathize  with  Prospero  in  his  diffi- 
•culties,  and  am  aware  of  the  crushing  weight 
of  the  last  straw  ;  also,  that  one  cannot  eat  one's 
cake  and  have  it  too.  Unfortunately,  the  soldier 
did  not  eat  the  cake ;  he  only  consumed  the  iron 
rations.  The  poverty  of  the  land,  moreover, 
is  far  more  real  than  apparent.  Sometimes  the 
soldier  suspects  that  the  man  who  stayed  at 
home  has  still  a  slice  or  two  in  the  cupboard, 
and  the  suspicion  strengthens  his  idea  of  a  revolu- 
tion engineered  behind  his  back. 

"  War  on  a  scale  and  for  a  cause  such  as  this 
war  implies  leads  to  high  thinking."  These 
words,  written  at  the  time  of  the  first  battle  of 
the  Aisne,  are  quoted  from  a  weekly  review  of 
some  standing,  and  they  fairly  represent  the  opti- 
mism of  1914.  Was  it  naive  or  calculated  ?  Most 
men  got  through  their  high  thinking  as  rapidly 
as  the  Germans  got  through  Belgium.  The 
prophets  had  gone  on  the  false  assumption  that 
fine  deeds  beget  fine  thoughts.  Experience  has 
shown  that  in  war  some  calculate,  more  miscal- 
culate, but  that  most,  for  good  enough  reasons, 
<lo  not  think  at  all.     There  are  alternating  fits  of 

304 


REVOLUTION? 


gaiety  and  brooding,  but  in  neither  is  the  in- 
telligence employed.     When  it  is  all  over,  the 
mass  temperament  remains  emotional.     It  may 
be  foolish  to  talk  of  revolutions,  past,  present, 
or  to  come,  but  one  cannot  escape  the  word. 
Phlegm  is  no  longer  a  British  characteristic. 
Its  requiem  was  sung  by  the  crowd  on  the  night 
of  the  Armistice.     The  throng  which  greeted  the 
two  airmen  who  failed  to  fly  the  Atlantic,  and 
all  but  ignored  the  two  others  who  a  while  later 
made  a  successful  crossing,  were  moved  by  emo- 
tions that  not  long  ago  would  have  been  styled 
mad,   hysterical,   un-English.      An    anthropolo- 
gist hints  to  me  that  our  little,  dark  Iberian  an- 
cestor is  at  last  conquering  the  big,  blonde  men 
who  so  long  held  him  in  thrall.     Years  ago,  Mr. 
Balfour  wrote  that  the  growth  of  cities  and  the 
emptying  of  the  country  could  only  have  the 
effect  of  de-Germanizing  the  people  and  shifting 
the  balance  against   the   tall,  fair   element   de- 
scended from  northern  immigrants.     The  end  of 
Teutonism  is  not  to  be  regretted,  but  there  must 
be  a  new  policy  for  a  new  people.     In  all  classes 
of  society  there  is  a  passion  for  "  direct  action  '* 
and  violence.      The  idea  of  the  political  strike 
synchronises  with  the  prevalence  of  the  crime 
passionely  and  persons  of  the  middle  class  pre- 

305  U 


ABOUT        IT       AND       ABOUT 

fer  to  settle  their  disputes  before  Judge  Lynch 
rather  than  before  him  who  sits  in  the  Court  of 
Admiralty,  Probate,   and  Divorce.     A  band  of 
well   educated   youths,   from   which  the  intelli- 
gentsia of  to-morrow  is   to  be  recruited,   runs 
amok  at  a  "  Pussyfoot "  meeting,  and  is  reproved 
\f  a  Lord  Chancellor  who  himself  has  a  lawless 
past.     TNi  Carpentier-Beckett  fight  is  the  focus 
of  attention  for  three  whole  days  together,  and 
is  discusse  j.  »at  Lockhart's  and  the  Ritz  with  more 
general  ^lowledge  than  has  been  displayed  over 
any  other  recent  crisis  in  English  history.     One 
revolution   may  have  gone  unheeded,   but  the 
next,  if  it  comes,  will  not  be  concluded  silently. 
Statesmen,  presuming  we  still  have  statesmen , 
can  take  steps  to  deal  with  serious  causes  of  dis  - 
affection,  but  what  can  they  do  to  avoid  the  dan- 
gers which  spring  from  mere  levity  ?     Even  in 
art  and  literature,  the  vorticist  and  free- versifier 
sway    and    dizzy    us.     "  Empty    feather    heads 
growing  ever  the  noisier,  in  their  own  emptiness, 
in  each  other's  noise."     Such  rattle  is  an  over- 
ture  with   ominous   associations.     All   Carlyle's 
words    in    dispraise    of   the    eighteenth-century 
French   fall   heavily   on   the   twentieth-century 
English,  and  the  cynic  is  already  here  to  point 
out  that  all  the  promised  high  thinking  has  led 

306 


REVOLUTION? 


only  to  Saturnalia.  Some  of  us  wish  that  we, 
like  the  French,  could  say  our  revolution  was 
behind  us.  The  new  policy  for  the  new  people 
is  not  easy  to  frame.  Yet,  after  all,  the  idea  of 
the  League  of  Nations  was  war-begotten,  and 
still  survives  as  revolution's  alternative.  Hos- 
tility or  indifference  of  Senates  and  Parliaments 
well  nigh  choke  it,  but  it  is  kept  alive  wherever 
there  is  a  majority  of  the  generation  which  has 
been  at  war.  Until  it  is  made  effective  there 
«an  be  no  great  hope  of  return  to  an  orderly 
way  of  life.  It  is  idle  to  ask  men  and  women 
to  devote  themselves  to  the  serious  details  of 
reconstructing  civilization  before  the  founda- 
tions have  been  well  and  truly  laid. 


307 


Prhtted  m  Ormt  Britain  fry 

Oirwni  BBOCHKBS,  umxBD 

vosnra  Ain>  XiOmsoh 


